


Words: Spiral

by bekeleven



Series: Words that we Couldn't Say [5]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Drama, F/F, Gen, Speech Disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-06-07 10:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 25,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6799342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bekeleven/pseuds/bekeleven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The forces of grimm march on civilization. For one young criminal and a huntress-in-training, the biggest struggle may be learning that humanity can be worth saving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Remnant at Night

**Eight Years Ago**

Mari huddled under the broken umbrella. Her sobs were silent, and her tears fell into the stream of rainwater flowing through the alley. She left no trace. Like she wasn't even there. She should be so lucky.

The muck from the garbage was done dripping off of the umbrella, especially the side with just bare ribs. She shrunk tighter, into a ball. Her encyclopedia, taking the umbrella's place in the trash, had been ruined hours ago.

She couldn't be Mari anymore. Mari had blood on her hands. They'd know it was her. They'd _know_.

Mari had parents. She couldn't go back. Not to _them_ , not after Nero. And that's where the police would take her. No help from above. No help, she already knew, from below.

She'd gotten out of Nero's den. Out of that hell of fear and abuse. And she'd done it alone, except in the most technical sense. But she wasn't a leader. Not an explorer, not a trendsetter. She needed somebody to tell her what to do. Tell her how to escape. Outrun the doubt and the shame, and learn how to live.

Mari needed a friend. She'd gotten this far. Didn't she deserve one? Was just one too much to ask?

More than that, Mari needed a meal. The storm had lasted hours. At first she'd stayed put to keep her clothing and cuts dry, but the junk umbrella hadn't withstood the rain for long. Now she was too cold to move, too wet to stay. Not that she had a destination. Downtown properties watched for vagrants. Uptown was gang territory. She wouldn't make that mistake again. Best to stay here. Chilled to the bone, out of sight. The cut on her arm still hadn't scabbed over, probably due to the wet, although her arm had switched from bleeding to being numb. She welcomed it, despite the pain distracting from her stomach. The numbness went well with the exhaustion numbing her mind.

Mari needed someone, anyone. She wouldn't make it more than a block now anyway; no way to be picky even if she tried. She'd lost weight without any to lose. Nero had joked about the portions he'd given her. It was his final joke that had made up her mind. Telling her to clean her plate, she was eating for two. _Was the laughter worth it now, bastard?_

Someone was coming.

A man walked into the alley, and Mari rose, holding the useless umbrella by her side. She looked the man in the eyes and grit her teeth. He stopped when he saw her pop up from behind the garbage cans, sizing her up with one visible eye, from her colorful hair to the water cascading down her body. It was possible she was still crying. It didn't really matter.

Mari opened her mouth to speak. Nothing, as usual. She'd need to do better. The umbrella slipped from her grasp.

She ran up to the man, jumped, and threw her hands around his neck. The cigar slipped from the man's mouth, bouncing off of Mari's shoulder before falling in a puddle. She didn't even feel the heat. When she touched his neck, something changed.

Mari experienced flashes. Images, feelings. Fragments of her life. Mom, Dad. Nero. Hunger. The room. The news. Her words. Customers. The knife. They flew by her, and through her, in an order she didn't comprehend.

"And that," said the man, lifting Mari by her armpits and setting her down, "is why I wear gloves." The images stopped.

What had he done? When she touched him, he'd gone into her head somehow. She knew that he'd seen. Everything she'd felt, maybe even more. It had gone by so fast. An invasion. Her past. Her life. Everything she needed to forget. All Mari wanted to do now was escape, before the man made her remember again.

"Tell you what, chickadee. You're interesting, so I'll give you a hand. Brace yourself."

Mari wasn't sure what he meant, but she met his steady gaze and held her breath. She steadied her footing, too, to keep from collapsing. Her shivering was getting worse. He probably saw in her whirlwind of memory and feeling that she couldn't talk. Nobody was in sight.

_You win. You have me. Do what you want. And if I'm alive at the end of it, I'll find out where you keep your knives too._

The man lay one gloved hand on her cheek and pressed his other to her chest. His body wreathed itself in orange. "I release your soul. Now let's go."

Mari fell backwards onto a pile of wet garbage. Everything went pink for a moment, then dimmed. She felt a crawling sensation on her right arm, like droplets dripping down, and saw her cut disappear. In its absence came flashes of pain. Beats. Fast, the pace of her heart. A strange power crept through her limbs.

A knot untied in her stomach, and Mari's eyelids drooped. Less hungry but more tired. With a helping hand from the man she rose, swaying on her feet. Whatever he'd done, releasing her soul, it made her stop shivering.

Probably past her bedtime anyway. The thought almost made Mari smile. Then her body shimmered all over and she was cold again, and tired, and hungrier than ever. Her feet fell out from under her, although the man kept her upright with a hand around her right wrist. Mari didn't have the energy to worry.

Despite the rain, the man placed a new cigar in his mouth with his free hand and lit it. "You're tired, so how about we make this quick.

"Where do mommy and daddy live?"

 


	2. Domain

**One Month Ago**

He would have to say yes. He would have to. _Have_ to. Competitive drive. It was one of his top five most reliable motivations. Well, top six for certain, depending on how much he really liked Brian Gintaras books. He'd been content to wait for publication rather than actually commissioning any, so far.

A small part of Weiss knew that the plan didn't place her in direct competition with her father. But he would view it just the same. She was challenging his institution, finding ways around his decrees. One didn't turn a profit for forty six of the past forty eight quarters by being lax about defiance. Of course there was risk, but she would have to commit to get what she wanted.

Which was home.

"Your father will see you now." Jocasta pointed to the office door, never looking up from her terminal. She'd grown more curt since Weiss's return, and Weiss wasn't sure why. Most likely reason was she resented the attention Weiss got from father. Weiss had three possible reasons for _that_ , none of them good. But it could also be that Jocasta resented her for the high volume of Weiss-related paperwork, or that her father was gossiping about Weiss's problems to the secretary. After those three possibilities, the odds dropped dramatically.

Father was, of course, staring at papers when Weiss entered. It was his most popular activity, followed by staring at his computer screen, then staring at a book. The remaining time, which was well under ten percent, he would simply watch her as she settled into his office chair. That meant she'd done something really bad. He'd only watched her sit down once since Beacon.

"What is your request?" father asked.

She would need to phrase things just right. It would do no good to satisfy his competitive drive only to run up against one of his four—or five, she'd have to figure that out later—higher motivations. "You have requested that I stay in Atlas until graduation."

"I have," he answered, his deep baritone moving straight through her.

"Very well. I would like to submit myself for graduation." It was rather risky. She was skirting the line on motivation two, and even three. But she was giving him an out for his second. She wasn't threatening his control, simply optimizing within his framework.

She couldn't help running afoul of his third motivation. If Weiss being headstrong reminded the man of her mother, then Weiss would have to accept that she wouldn't satisfy that desire, whatever it was. She was still deciding between _not mentioning Gisa Schnee_ or _forgetting Gisa Schnee._ Either way, the woman had picked many an argument with him in her time.

Her father regarded her, expressionless, across his desk. "You believe yourself a huntress at age eighteen."

 _Tread lightly._ "I believe myself to have met degree requirements." The written would be easy. Trivial. She could've passed it a decade ago. The only question was the practical. But damn it, if she could use glyphs to even half of their potential, even just the ones she knew well...

Father nodded. "I will arrange the date and time. You will have your trial."

Weiss didn't like the glint in his eye when he spoke. He _was_ treating it as a challenge, and he meant to beat her. Ironwood would see to her safety, or at least, to her life. But past that, what father planned to do...

Most likely would be to beat her into submission. Second most likely was to give her a challenge above the normal testing level, but still possible. Third most likely, perhaps fifteen percent, would be a challenge in line with normal fourth year skills.

It all depended on how he viewed her challenge conflicting with his primary motivation: the advancement and legacy of the Schnee Dust Company. Was she better off staying subservient, or was her independence a trait to foster?

She would find out soon enough.

* * *

 

Weiss had expected quiet. A smaller affair. Father would want to stamp down her rebellious streak, but not damage her future prospects.

"Ladies and gentleman," came a voice over the speakers, acoustics warping and muffling it here in the stadium's center. "Weiss Schnee." Weiss curtsied.

She had been off by two standard deviations. Father wasn't up in the stands with just Ironwood. Weiss recognized a dozen SDC executives, with a whole wing of functionaries to their right, and various ranking politicians and business partners to their left. The seats weren't packed all the way around the ring, but there were still a hundred people watching. Over-under about one hundred and ten, and getting more accuracy would require counting the gap seats.

So it wasn't just a beating, but humiliation. Had father decided that it wouldn't harm her future prospects, or did he just not care? That didn't seem like him. The third possibility, that he'd made some sort of arrangement with Winter, was rapidly overtaking the second.

The gate was opening. Weiss raised myrtenaster, cycling the barrels. A familiar action, designed for comfort. She settled on ice. It was like her trademark.

Two death stalkers and a nevermore. All full grown.

 _Well, it's less than they give most teams of four._ Weiss ran through the possibilities. She could take two nevermore charges or feathers to her aura. Probably only one death stalker attack, claw or stinger. The death stalkers could control the ground, while the nevermore couldn't be fenced off, not in an arena smaller than Amity. It would barely have room to turn.

No, Weiss would want it to turn. She could win, she'd just need time to break in those death stalker's shells. To get it...

The nevermore flew in, and the death stalkers skittered forwards. Weiss placed some glyphs behind her and fired ice like a battery. One ball hit the nevermore's wing, tilting it off course. The death stalkers ignored the ice striking their shells, but that didn't matter as much. Weiss let those glyphs lapse and placed a propulsion glyph in front of the front stalker's claw, then another in front of that slightly tilted. Almost instantly she had an array of a dozen glyphs going in a semicircle.

The death stalker moved forward, and its claw struck the first glyph. That pushed it into the second, which turned it slightly. The claw curved around, tugging the stalker's limb, and its front exited the last glyph completely turned around, piercing one of its own eyes. It stopped, the one behind it crashing into its back.

 _This will be easy._ Seventy percent of her ice expended. She cycled to air and let the glyphs lapse. The nevermore had recovered and flew in for another run.

 _Wait for the attack..._ Weiss projected an aerial path, and sprung upwards through her glyphs as it swooped low. She shot straight past the grimm's head and grabbed onto a feather on its back, loosing wind from myrtenaster to match velocities.

Holding on with one arm, Weiss aimed myrtenaster at the front death stalker's broken eye. The nevermore continued the circle. _You can thank Ruby Rose for this one, dad. My first stop._ Hopefully the man had planned for the single-digit percent chance that she won.

Weiss ran the numbers, smiled, and cycled to red.


	3. Someone

Crescent rose spun in an elegant circle, and it—along with Ruby—carved a red streak through the beowolves. Behind her, she heard Ren and Nubu on her flanks, while Jaune fought the alpha. When she reached the end of the pack, Ruby fired a shot to stop, then fired again one revolution later to reverse. Surveying the field mid-rotation, trying not to get too nauseous, Ruby tracked the lines she could direct herself into. None would cover more than three beowolves. Her teammates were doing well. She picked one and fired again, propelling herself through what remainders she could, leaving a smear of blood and petals on the thawing snow.

Within seconds, the forest was still, save the four hunters catching their breath. Then snow fell from a branch, smacking the forest floor like a gunshot. Ruby jumped at the sound, then laughed.

"All right, guys. And girl. Let's try that hilltop for camp." Ruby pointed to her right. Jaune nodded and started forward. When your enemies could sense your soul, there was no disadvantage to high ground.

The hilltop had one tree, and Ruby approached in its shadow. Aura didn't protect eyes from sunlight, even setting sunlight. There was probably a study on that somewhere, but Ruby didn't need the why, just her hood.

Jaune walked around the tree, surveying the forest. "Good visibility."

Ruby looked around herself. There was more and more variety in the view these days, from the endless white that had made the land so boring but kept spotting grimm so easy. So easy to keep her people protected. Ruby's eyes were drawn to a patch of bare ground, where the snow seemed to intrude at an odd angle.

She stepped forwards. A piece of white paper lay on the ground, its corner buried in snow. It was wet, but not soaked through. In fact, one corner looked pristine.

The paper read, _walk another hour before you camp. Dangerous here._

Ruby picked up the paper. "Guys? There's a note here. Looks recent."

Ruby's team gathered around her.

"We're being watched," concluded Ren.

"What are the intentions of the writer?" asked Nubu. "Lure us somewhere?"

"We're still a day out from the last town," answered Ruby. "There's nothing that they could be drawing us to. It's just more forest. If they wanted to lure us into a trap, they could've just set up to ambush us when they came to leave the letter."

"Unless they needed to lay it somewhere else." Jaune was spinning in a slow circle, trying to watch every angle at once. "I mean, if this was left by someone trying to help us, what would they be warning us about? Something they can't say what it is? Why would heading south protect us?"

"I don't want to stay here," said Nubu. "I'm scared. I think about Mister Branwen, and I want to get back sooner."

"We'll leave." Jaune was staring down the hill. "But we'll have to be smart."

"Let's not go south," suggested Ruby. "Cut southeast for a bit. We'll try to get back on path in the morning."

"We do not have the rations to stay out here any longer than we must." Ren, the voice of reason. _Path_ overstated it, but if they walked past the settlements Qrow had brought them through on their way north, Ruby didn't know if they'd find any life at all.

"I like it." Jaune started off the hill, swinging to the southeast. "One hour. Set the scroll."

Ren took off behind him, eyes on the screen of the scroll they were using. Ruby turned to Nubu, looking her up and down. Her posture was subdued, like how Ruby felt at dances.

"Thanks." That wasn't right. It wasn't a... It was a thing of sorrow. "I mean, thanks for being attached to Qrow. And thanks for grieving. Maybe you should."

"Ma'am?" asked the taller girl.

"I'm the leader now. I have to get us back safe." Ruby watched the boys descend the hill. "But maybe when we're back safe in Mistral, I can afford to miss him. Then I'll need you to protect me." She flashed Nubu a smile. "Don't worry. You won't have to lead us. I'm sure..."

Neo would be in Mistral. So would Blake. So would Sun and Neptune and all of Haven. Someone would know what to do. Someone would be able to lead.

But Ruby couldn't think like that now.

"...I'm sure we'll figure something out."

Nubu bowed. "Yes, Miss Rose."

Ruby reached her arm out and patted Nubu on the back. Then she turned towards the boys at the bottom of the hill. "Let's march."

Jaune could lead. To some extent, he was leading now, although he seemed to agree with Ruby's decisions. The man respected uncle Qrow, but she didn't know much beyond that. Maybe after Pyrrha he'd been content to let people happen around him rather than get involved. It didn't seem like a great way to live, but his attitude towards Nubu and Qrow bore it out.

And Neo. _Especially_ Neo.

Oh, Neo hadn't lived up to his expectations all right. But Neo hadn't been the one who failed to defeat Cinder with her magical superpowered eyes. _Argent._ It had worked once. Get to the surface. No questions. Qrow hadn't been mad, just... realistic.

Ruby smiled as she joined the boys. Someone was looking out for them. That was how she decided to see it. Because if they were walking into a trap, it was one they would never have avoided. And what use was it worrying about that?


	4. Keep on Breathing

"You are giving me no end of trouble."

Neo awoke to Roman's voice. She didn't know where she was. She'd stayed awake, mostly, when he'd dragged her inside a dark storefront and up some stairs. Stayed passive and watched, for as long as she could. She'd been moved since, since she didn't recognize this room's ugly orange wallpaper or threadbare furniture. Her pockets had been emptied. She'd urinated, long enough ago that she was dry but smelly. She was hungry, a little, and thirsty a lot.

"First, you go and betray me while I'm working for a woman who could kill us both with an eyelash. Then I meet you again and you've gone off my prescription. You're not happy, Neo. And I have a pretty objective viewpoint on this, so trust me when I say that when you're sad, I'm sad."

Neo remembered his lessons. Don't risk squatting if you can rent or buy. He must have bought this place, because where can you rent a room with rings on the wall to chain shackles?

Typical Roman. He'd never cuffed her before, but it still seemed like him somehow. Neo sat up from her bed and tried to sit dangling her legs off the mattress, but the chain from the wall was too short for her to rest her hands in her lap. She decided to scoot back and sit cross-legged against the wall instead.

"What, nothing to say? And don't make me read you. You're the one that got into this mess, I don't want to join you there."

Mess. White fang, police, military, decimated. Was Neo even in Mistral any more? Cinder, undoubtedly angry. Blake... dead? The underworld, wherever she was, would not be kind. Still no word from Ruby, alive or dead, although how would she get it in here?

Neo looked around the room. Besides her bed and Roman's chair, there wasn't anything. A few other rings were set into the walls, and even some in the floor and ceiling, none with anything threaded through them. An open metal doorway on the concrete wall to her right that she couldn't see out of. An inset light in the room's center. A bag under Roman's chair.

"Fine. I man can dream." Roman pulled something out of his jacket pocket and tossed it across the room for Neo to catch. It was a scroll. Smaller than her normal, and older. The back identified it as the YTG 250, the first scroll Roman had ever bought her.

_He does care._

She clicked past a ɴᴇᴛᴡᴏʀᴋ ᴄᴀʀᴅ ᴅᴀᴍᴀɢᴇᴅ warning to type. ʜᴇʟʟᴏ ʀᴏᴍᴀɴ. ᴡʜʏ ᴀᴍ ɪ ᴄʜᴀɪɴᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʟʟ?

"There is the minor issue of our last encounter resulting in my falling a mile to my death. Well, supposed death. It did let me evade various other deaths, but seeing as those were also caused by you I don't think that's exactly gold star-worthy."

Gold stars. How long had it been? A lifetime ago. She'd had nineteen. First time joining Roman on a deal, first weapon built, first assist, first theft, first kill. Even cooking, cleaning, standing guard. She'd gone far in two years.

He'd just had one star left when she abandoned him. First word. Was that what he'd been asking earlier? "Nothing to say?" Had he honestly expected her to speak to him? Was it because of something he'd seen in her?

Neo turned her scroll around and looked. The words ʜᴇʟʟᴏ ʀᴏᴍᴀɴ stared back at her. She read over them a few times.

"Hello Roman," Neo couldn't say.

Instead she typed, ɪ'ᴍ sᴏʀʀʏ. ɪ ᴡᴀs ᴀғʀᴀɪᴅ.

It hadn't stopped. Grimm, white fang, such things didn't scare Neo. Cinder, perhaps a little.

Trying to lead Ruby Rose and her friends was terrifying. Almost as bad as being alone. Roman had never offered her a gold star for independence. If Roman was here...

Things would have to work out, right? This time?

Neo looked at her hand. The scar tissue wasn't as bright as it had been, but it wouldn't ever fit in with her skin. Ring and pinky. Enough to type on a keypad. Enough to turn knobs, to balance swings, to hold things, sometimes with aura assistance. But aura can't grow fingers.

"Well, Neo, you went and screwed up everything without me, although I'm impressed it took you this long. You had a good run there for a couple of years. Then Cinder hires me, Cinder hires you, you go full rocky road, and before anybody knows it you're homeless, friendless, and dying alone on the streets. Seems to happen to you a lot."

Roman was wrong, of course. Neo wasn't friendless. She had him.

"Well, don't worry any more, Neo. I'm back. We're a team again. So just tell me one thing. Out of everything you can get, _we_ can get... what is it you want?"

Limiting his request to things that could happen hurt. It meant no Ruby Rose; the girl herself had made that clear. No killing. If Ruby's mission with her uncle didn't stop the grimm invasion, stopping Cinder was out of the realm of possibility too. Neo could occupy a day reading, but it wasn't her goal, her desire.

ɪ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʏᴏᴜ, ʀᴏᴍᴀɴ.

Roman read the scroll and smiled. "Things aren't how they used to be, and maybe you picked a little bit of a fight with an omnipotent being, but I'm a survivor. We'll find a way out." He grabbed the bag under his chair and threw it over. Neo opened it. Clothing, a can of soda, and some candy bars. "Eat up and get changed. You smell terrible. I'd crack a window, but..."

Roman rose and walked through the doorway and Neo heard some clinking metal. "If you can't tell by not being dead," came his voice, "that faunus saved the city." Then the door slammed closed and locked.


	5. We Sound Amazed

"You should..." She paused. "Turn on your semblance, and touch it. You should be able to channel it, to direct its energy."

Yang didn't have to turn her semblance on. She could always feel it, just past her right shoulder. But touching the blue-gray crystal with her left hand, her flesh-and-blood hand, didn't seem to add anything to the energy at her disposal.

"Sorry, Weiss, I don't feel it."

"Well, I don't really know how to explain it." The heiress frowned. "Maybe ice dust is the wrong fit. Drawing moisture from the air works on a whole different axis, so the dust can't combine. Try another." Weiss lifted the top from another box, revealing a red crystal of similar size sitting on in a velvet-lined inset.

Yang didn't see how fire would work better. After all, fire dust didn't pull anything from the air either, so her semblance was just as different. But maybe the overlap in element was messing her up somehow, so she took a deep breath and lay her left hand on the crystal. Yang's fire returned.

Oh, it wasn't the same. It swirled in from her palm rather than up from her core. But the fire... It had always been synonymous with power. Yang smiled. Dust, she didn't know. But she could mix her old semblance with her new. She forced the power down her right arm.

Which promptly caught fire, and after a few seconds, melted.

"Well." Weiss looked down at the half-crystal remaining. "That was dramatic. Very like you." She wobbled as the transport started to slow.

"It felt right, but I guess they don't mix." Yang began to reconstitute her arm. "Maybe if I practice I can keep it together for longer." Practice might be challenging.

"Well, dust isn't about feeling. It's about discipline and control." Weiss shut the crystal's container. "Practicing will do you good."

Yang wanted to say that Weiss had changed, but she was who she was. Discipline and control. Not exactly Yang's speed. But Yang's speed didn't fare so well when confronted with the real world. Sometimes people had to change. Sometimes those people weren't Weiss.

The intercom crackled. "Executor Schnee, landing clearances have been granted. We're approaching the city."

"Well." Weiss composed herself. "Daddy did his part. Time to make him proud." She marched from the hold.

Yang looked around the tiny space, then threw the fire dust box into her bag. The crystal was already half gone, so it's not like they'd be able to sell it. Her arm was fully grown.

She found Weiss in the bridge, sitting in the copilot's chair, speaking into a headset plugged into the ship's controls. The ship was flying at a steady clip, rising to the ridge at the edge of Mistral Gorge. "What about the normal military? ... How many border forts? ... Why won't they negotiate with you? ... All of them?"

Yang leaned in close to Weiss. The voice on the other end was speaking. Male, deep, probably older. "They're formed from the white fang. One hundred percent faunus."

"I'll see what I can do," Weiss replied. "They have a reason not to like us, but if they've been incorporated, they'll need to follow some standards of impartiality. But I'll need something in exchange, director. Do you have any information on the whereabouts of Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, or Lie Ren?"

"I'll check the records for the rest..." Yang heard was typing through the headset. "Blake Belladonna is the White Fang Belle. She's in Mistral General South with the Green Goddess."

"White Fang Belle?" asked Weiss. Green Goddess? wondered Yang.

The ship crested the ridge, giving the huntresses a view of the city.

Mistral was fat in the center, a huge urban grid that supported millions. To the north and south, it snaked into smaller and smaller buildings as the level bottom of the gorge thinned. The border forts nearby were primed and ready, with soldiers and vehicles swarming this way and that. Yang could barely see the far ridge, but it was distinct just the same. She reached over Weiss, frozen in shock, and dialed for magnification.

A section of the southeastern ridge was green. Not the green of farmland, but the green of a thick, lush, old-growth forest. The green started in a line at the ridge, it must have been miles wide, and went down in a wedge towards the city. From this distance, the edges of the forest looked perfectly straight.

The wedge extended into the city, trees growing over buildings, through them in some cases. It came to a point on the top of a building thirty or forty stories tall, which was green from top to bottom.

"That's where we'll find her," whispered Yang. "Home of the Green Goddess." There was no other explanation. Growth, the external power of the maiden of spring.

Weiss unfroze herself. "Director, I'm looking at the city. what am I seeing?"

"The trees were placed by the Green Goddess to stop the grimm," the man said. Grimm invasion. He must have told Weiss. "Grimm can't pass through it. And because the Green Goddess is a faunus, some insect type, the white fang have been stirring the pot over it. Even after they've been granted amnesty and deputized. They've practically taken over the hospital to guard her. No gratitude."

This was more power than a maiden should have. Maybe over time, a long time, but to stop charging grimm? What did he mean that grimm couldn't pass? Did Yang fundamentally misunderstand Tahki's lessons on the power of maidens?

Was Cinder this powerful, too?

Yang yanked the headset cord and spoke. "How is the Green Goddess now?"

The man's voice now came from the bridge speakers. "Who is-"

"Answer her, regional director," ordered Weiss.

There was a grumble on the other end of the line. "From what the faunus say, she still hasn't woken up."

"And we need them," prompted Weiss. Bringing Yang up to speed.

"The real military, what's left of it, is hung up on reinforcing the borders," the director said. "They've left the faunus people to direct military escorts and grimm patrols."

"I'll make a deal." Weiss was in her element. Giving orders and hating people. "I'll see to it your petitions stop getting lost. But you are absolutely forbidden from dealing with them yourself."

"Executor Schnee, please think better of me than to assume I speak to anyone like that."

Weiss exhaled. "That will be enough, director." She terminated the call.

"So that's your new boss?" asked Yang. A real charmer, that one.

"Not... technically," Weiss turned from Yang back to the window. "My freedom of movement comes with certain responsibilities. I am to advocate company interests and ensure that branches run smoothly, at least until I quit." She pointed to the pilot. "You didn't hear that."

"No, ma'am," the pilot answered, staring straight ahead. She was a good woman. Yang would have to get Weiss to promote her or something.

"Good." Weiss turned back to Yang. "What's wrong? The specifics of my employment can't possibly be affecting you that much."

Oh. Yang realized she wasn't happy. "I don't know. We know where Blake is, I just... Ruby left with juniper heading to Mistral. She asked if I would come. Tried to cheer me up, I guess, but at the time I wasn't ready to hear it."

Yang exhaled. "I just figured, we were coming in, I was hours from seeing her again. I let myself believe it would be that easy. Now it turns out that it's not and we found Blake. And don't get me wrong, it's great that we found Blake." Yang set her mouth into a line. "I just don't know how that conversation is going to go."

Weiss looked out at the city. "She promised me she'd come to us. To her team."

"Yeah." Yang spit out the word. "I guess she found a new team."

"I'm sure it's not like that, Yang." Weiss threw an arm around Yang's shoulders and turned her to face into the ship. "Come on. Seeing you with that water bottle got me thinking. Do you think you can move ice if I make it from dust?"

Yang took a halting step with her. Weiss glared and poked her in the stomach. "This isn't you. Either you let me distract you with my perfectly reasonable request or you deal with it some other way. Worry about Ruby, resent Blake. But stop moping, Yang Xiao Long."

"Yes, Your Supreme Executive Schneeness."

What did it mean if Maidens had that much power?

How far would Cinder go to destroy? Or whoever was pulling her strings?

Yang put on a smile and followed Weiss back to storage.


	6. Stronger Love

Jaune lay back and relaxed.

True relaxation was a rarity. There were just so many steps. He was alone. He was in a bed, for the first time in over a week. It wasn't too cold, or too hot. The whole inn was silent. The whole tiny town. It was like it was holding its breath, even as the last of the snow melted. Even the mysterious note-leaving stranger said they could stay in town for the night.

Jaune closed his eyes. The door opened.

 _What now? It can't be my watch already._ Jaune opened his eyes and prepared to scold Ren, but found Nubu flipping the lights and closing the door behind her. _Right. Should remember this inn isn't big enough for locks._ The room was barely a matchbox and she practically had to get into bed with him to close the door. Why was Nubu here? The girls got the larger room they could afford, so they could sleep uninterrupted.

"Hello, Master..." Nubu paused. "Jaune." Her arms were stiff at her sides, hands making fists and balling up her skirt. She normally wore pants under that skirt. She was dressed for bed too. Jaune tried not to stare at her calves.

"Hello, Nubu." Jaune sat up, and looked deliberately at her face. He only had five hours before his guard shift. At least he could stay inside. Sitting in a chair in a hallway was a lot better than on a log buried in snow. "What's on your mind?" _And not that I'm complaining, but why am I not Master Arc any more?_

"Jaune." She looked on the verge of saying more, but her mouth just hung open. She reached under her right pauldron and undid a buckle, then her left. Her twisting around gave Jaune a view of her midriff, an area Pyrrha bared freely.

It was when she started running down the buckles at her sides that Jaune caught on. "Nubu, what are you taking off your armor for?"

"Jaune." Her tongue stumbled over the name. "You're the perfect man for me."

"Wait, Nubu."

She removed her breastplate, placing it on the floor, then started work on her gambeson. Her curves were far more defined than Jaune had ever seen them. "She wrote about you. It took me time to see."

"Nubu, stop." Jaune got out of bed. Thanks to the size of the room, he now stood right next to her. He could look down on her short blonde hair, the polar opposite of Pyrrha's, how did he never notice that cowlick in the middle? Her skirt was longer, and armored. Her body was so strong, but she wasn't, she needed...

Nubu yanked her gambeson off in one swift motion, revealing a bra constructed of lace and imagination. She can't have been wearing this trekking through the snowy wilderness, right? Did she pack it? Did she buy it somewhere in this tiny town? Dust save them all, could it be Ruby's?

It couldn't be. It fit Nubu _far_ too well. Jaune's high angle was doing him no favors. Or, well, it was. He blushed and looked away, but had to turn back. He had to see her face. She was grim, determined, her jaw set. Keeping her composure, but fighting a fight.

She placed two hands on her skirt, above the flared metal overlay to the waistband. Jaune grabbed her arms with his own. "Nubu, I don't want this."

"You..." Jaune studied her face but his gaze kept slipping down to her chest. So he just focused on her eyes. Wide in shock, then narrowing in sadness. "Jaune, Pyrrha is dead."

"I _know_ , Nubu." Back to her eyes. Oops. Why couldn't she make this easier?

"So why can't..." Nubu had a point she was struggling to explain. "I've spent a lot of time following her. Following everywhere. And I'm... close to as good."

"You're not her, Nubu. You're yourself." Dust, Jaune couldn't even string a sentence together. She's herself? His hands were tingling where he held Nubu's arms. Should he let go? What if she keeps undressing? Should he sit down on the bed? What if she takes it as an invitation? Should he throw her out into the hall? With nothing on her chest but filigree and hope?

Jaune snapped his arms to his sides. Hopefully she wouldn't undress, even if a growing part of him wouldn't mind the sight. A few inches shorter, a few years younger, different hair, gold into bronze...

"I know I can't be her, Jaune. But I can be good enough. Passable.." Her hands found her skirt's fasteners. "I'll try twice as hard, you'll see."

In desperation, Jaune hugged the girl, pinning her arms still. Somehow it made things worse. His arms and front tingled, especially his lower chest. He could feel her breath, and her heartbeat.

"You don't have to try, Nubu. You've done amazing things. And you'll do plenty more. You don't have to save the world all at once. Just save us." His grip tightened. "Save yourself. From doing something you'll regret."

"I want this," Nubu told Jaune's chin.

"Pyrrha might want this. Me. Wanted." Tenses weren't where he wanted his mind to be, but it was better than pressing alternatives. "You've spent so long trying to want what other people want." Jaune was trying his hardest not to give her what she wanted. "You just need to be Nubukha Nikos, and see where that takes you."

Nubu pressed her face against Jaune's shirt. "How?"

Jaune opened his mouth to speak. No words came out. What could he say?

He tried again, but still produced no sound. Neither did Nubu. Or his breath. Or his heartbeat.

Jaune was deaf. He pulled away from Nubu and asked her what was happening, producing silence. She looked as confused as him mouthed some words, pointing to her ear. This wasn't Nubu's semblance. It was something else. Jaune shook his head. He didn't know. Oops, eyes on face.

Was Jaune doing it? _Semblances are a reflection of personality and desire. I guess it would make sense that I kill the sound when I don't know what to say._

Active semblances were supposed to be... A hunter could feel them when used. Jaune didn't feel like he was doing anything. Did that just come with experience?

Was it a passive semblance? Could he not turn it off?

Somebody threw the room's door open, knocking Nubu onto the bed. A man holding a scimitar stood in the hallway, tall, dressed in furs. He pointed at Nubu and stepped into the room. Behind him, Jaune saw a woman, similarly dressed.

Nubu rolled onto her back and pointed as he brought his sword down in an overhand chop. He flew backwards into the woman, both of which slammed against the hallway wall. The bed collapsed under Nubu from the force of her semblance. The weapon shot from the man's hand.

Jaune grabbed his sword and shield from the end table and stepped into the doorway. He saw the man dislodge his scimitar from the wall, but no sooner had he pointed it at Jaune than it popped out of his hand again. The woman, behind him, wrestled to keep her axe facing forward.

Jaune advanced, but he must have passed through Nubu's firing line because he lost his grip on his sword. It flew into the woman and ricocheted off of her aura, landing flat on the wall.

Nubu shoved him out the door and to the left. She was moving into the hallway herself, braced like she was walking into heavy winds. Jaune stumbled towards the man, now unarmed, and bashed him with his shield. The man reeled, but stayed standing. Jaune hit him again.

Jaune heard his third hit, and his breathing, and his heartbeat, and a grunt from the man under the shield. Then Ren and Ruby rounded the hallway corner, Ren with an unconscious fur-clad man on his back. Ruby dashed through the hall in a blur and struck both Jaune and Nubu's opponents down.

"Bounty hunters," said Nubu, standing over their bodies. "We should get rope. Leave tonight."

"Uh, Nubu," asked Ruby. "Where's your shirt?"

"It's in..." Nubu pointed into Jaune's room. Ruby looked inside, saw her armor and the collapsed bed, and turned back to Nubu and Jaune. Nubu went pale and rushed down the hall into room she shared with Ruby. Jaune felt his own face begin to burn.

"You know," said Ruby, "I'm just going to go pack my stuff." She followed Nubu into their room. "...But why are bounty hunters after us?"

Ren went downstairs, for help or restraints. Jaune should pack his own things. But he should also speak to Nubu. Console her. Even if anybody else would be better, Ren with his quiet wisdom or Ruby with her... womanly knowledge. No, somehow these things landed on Jaune's plate.

No matter how much he wanted to get some privacy and relax.


	7. Everyone in the World is Doing Something

No matter how much Atlesian huntresses might use it as a diversionary measure, Yang _wasn't_ obsessed with food. She enjoyed it, certainly. But she was controlled, and never binged. Even their fearless leader didn't let a meal get in the way of an objective.

Which was why Weiss found it so puzzling that Yang pulled onto the sidewalk in front of an ice cream shop. "We're still a mile away from the hospital, Yang. Is there engine trouble?"

Yang flipped down the kickstand and pointed. "I swear I just saw Roman Torchwick turn down that alley."

"Excellent," Weiss agreed. "Now we'll have another fight to pick when the authorities think we've been too peaceful. Can we get going?"

"I want to follow him." Yang flexed her left arm, and her right followed its lead somehow. She was wearing a glove and long sleeve on it, which met under her bracer, to avoid the stares they'd been getting at the landing pad. Her net stares were down maybe sixty percent. Weiss's attention was up twenty percent in the same timeframe. Even in Mistral, her face was known.

Yang was proving hard to pin down. She was mostly her old self, with a noticeable minority of unconfidence and a sliver of hard edge Weiss couldn't place. Was this a way of avoiding Blake? "You said Ruby came here tracking Cinder. So let's find her, get Blake, and join our forces before we interrupt _their_ plan with"

"Come _on_ , Weiss!" Yang jumped off the bike and took a few steps. "He's getting away."

Weiss sighed. It _was_ good for Yang to show initiative. "I'm too high-profile for a chase. Get a location and keep in touch."

Yang waved, and was gone.

Weiss rose and stretched. One mile out, no clue how to drive a motorcycle, and she had an appointment to keep.

* * *

Hospitals in Atlas sat in high-traffic downtown areas. Didn't make much sense, now that Weiss thought about it. Better to place hospitals in places where more people are and more vehicles aren't.

Not that this part of Mistral was purely residential. Far from it. The area around the hospital itself was a textbook snapshot of urban decay, with pawn shops, liquor stores, and bodegas on every other block. The rooms on the second and third stories would be apartments.

Weiss stood in a rusty playground looking up at Mistral General South, by far the tallest building in the neighborhood. Wreathed in greenery from bottom to top, this was where the white fang-cum-Mistral Discretionary Corps placed their unofficial headquarters. The location of Weiss's meeting with Colonel Amblik. And, hopefully, the location of Blake Belladonna.

After some consideration, Weiss's desire for a relatively low profile outweighed her punctual nature, meaning she was four minutes late going in. She hadn't gotten a location within the hospital from regional director Vuk, so the front door was the best bet. _Head towards the largest concentration of hostility and see what happens._ She crossed the street.

The front door was dark, due to the shade from the building. The front lobby was darker, with roots growing through half the ceiling lights as well as crossing back and forth across the tiled floor. It was like the entire building was an animal den. Yang said that the green goddess was some kind of mythical maiden. Mythical, Weiss could believe. Seemed like the uneven floor would cause some logistical problems with wheelchairs and gurneys. Might be why the room had guards but no receptionists or nurses. Weiss would investigate the buildings to the east, when she got out alive. They looked similarly green from above.

Stepping into the lobby brought Weiss attention. At least half of the guards were faunus; the rest didn't have obvious physical traits, but that didn't mean much. A few wore military paraphernalia but odds were they were off-duty. All wore some form of purple. A tall man with a lion's mane stepped into Weiss's path.

"Visiting?" he asked. A man wearing silvered sunglasses walked up behind him and whispered in his ear. Most likely telling him Weiss's identity. She should have come in snow pea. Would that have even helped?

"Yes. I'm here to visit." Nothing for it but to play her hand. She just had to meet the colonel and work out a deal using the concessions she'd been authorized. Myrtenaster was tucked away in her backpack, a compromise between safety and hostility. The backpack covered her insignia, a compromise between anonymity and pride.

The man's courses of action would be to bar her entry, to attack her, or to bring her where she wanted. The odds of each would change if she was recognized, but she wasn't sure how, or even where they started. This situation was unprecedented in Weiss's experience.

"Schnee." He looked her up and down. Mostly down, due to the height difference. "This isn't your land."

_If he grabs me, he pummels my aura out in four to six hits. I can glyph his hand, but I may miss. Best to duck, fire him in the air, jump back and reassess. It will take four motions to get myrtenaster into my hand. The odds of doing so under fire are slim. I'd need to leave the room to do so, by which point I'm better off disengaging. Fighting the white fang is counterproductive._

The man may have meant more by _your land._ Not just a reference to Atlas, but to the reach of the SDC - and her own personal power. If so, and the curling of his lip increased the probability, going by the book would gain Weiss nothing. Lead to increased resistance, if anything, and Weiss didn't want to resort to a fallback plan. Most of them had gotten much worse when Yang abandoned her.

"I'm here to see my friend and teammate, Blake Belladonna. Is she here?" Politeness and misdirection; Weiss had a lot of practice from Atlas. Blake wasn't an officer, but Weiss had gotten the impression she had sway. Also, it seemed unlikely Blake would attempt to kill her.

The man stepped back to confer with another. Weiss turned at the sound of movement behind her to see two women standing between her and the door.

_Door is problematic for quick exit anyway. I was planning on the plate glass window._

Finally, the maned man sent his partner up some stairs, then gestured around the room. The rest of the guards, eight in all, locked their eyes on Weiss. Several took steps forward, but the ones near doors stayed at their posts.

Weiss raised her hands. It's not like it changed her defense profile in the slightest, and it might calm some of them down. "I'm just here to see a friend."

A hand was around her right wrist, and Weiss heard a blast of air as it made room for her attacker. One of the women in front of the door. Fast. As fast as Weiss with _Haste._ Faster. "Let's get going, Schnee."

Either she was bringing Weiss to Blake, to Amblik, or somewhere else to beat or kill. The first two were fine. The third one would present a better opportunity for resistance when she wasn't in the center of a hostile crowd. "Lead the way, then." Oops. Her delivery may have been too confrontational. Or maybe the white fang respected backbone. They certainly had some, going from outlaws to the law.

The woman yanked her towards the stairwell, and a man took ahold of her left arm. Their grips were rough, solid. It seemed rather irregular to Weiss. The maned man was standing back and watching, and the messenger hadn't returned. How did they know where to take her? Weiss could only see one side of the woman's head, but she didn't have an earpiece in it. Weiss didn't like uncertainty.

They took the stairs up, thankfully. Then up a second floor, then a third. What had the trees done to the elevator shafts? On the sixth floor, the woman shouldered the door open and pulled Weiss past a nurse's station into a hallway.

Few of the lights here worked, thanks to the roots across both floor and ceiling. Trunks of wood cut through the walls and occasionally jutted through the hallway floor, but there weren't enough for it to be hard to navigate.

Every door on the floor was open and occupied. Men and women in white fang masks watched in silence, lit from behind, as Weiss was led past their doors. Weiss kept her face composed. If this was meant to intimidate her, she couldn't let them know how well it was working.

A man barely taller than Weiss left his door and stood in the middle of the hall. Weiss's guide stopped, and others around them took steps from their doorways into the hall. The woman pointed at him, then at Weiss. Whispers traveled the hall. Weiss ran down the list. The hallway had too many tree trunks to move through with any speed. She'd need to open with a glyph. No, multiple glyphs. Fire herself into the man's doorway and her guards into walls. Their grips would give out before her glyphs. And before her aura gave out and her arms got torn out. From there she'd need to dive through a window. There was a particularly thick root across the floor where she needed to move. If she accelerated using a glyph, she might trip, but that was an acceptable risk.

Then the challenger nodded and stepped beside Weiss. The others who had stepped into the hall stepped backwards, and Weiss could breathe again. Weiss's escorts, and the new man, walked her further down the hall.

At the end of a hall was a doorway so overgrown with roots its door was removed. Out of it walked Blake, looking incredibly blessedly _normal._ "Weiss! Come in." She gestured. The hands on Weiss's wrists let go, and her guards slunk back down the hall.

Weiss followed Blake into the hospital room. Inside were two beds, one of which had a sheet drawn around it. "I just heard. What brings you to Mistral?"

"Concern for my fragile teammates, run off and hidden without a hope." Maybe it was best that Yang wasn't here. Weiss being angry was just, well, Weiss as far as Blake was concerned. "Quite a display out there."

"Yeah, my people take it seriously." Was that a _my people_ as in people like me, or people I control? Blake had no standing in the Mistral army. Weiss had checked. "First just the ones whose homes were destroyed or overgrown, but now I have two or three hundred live-ins." Blake propped a large wooden board over the doorway. "I'm not stupid. I know they're not here for their belle."

Weiss approached the curtained bed and turned to Blake, who nodded. Weiss pulled the curtain back.

She was five foot six, toned, around thirty. She lay centered in the bed in a hospital gown, dirty blonde hair flared around her head in a circle. Her arms, covered in a brownish exoskeleton, lay at her sides. She had no IV or feeding tube. Only roots, growing into her body in a dozen different places.

"She never let on her power," said Blake from behind Weiss. "She was in the white fang for months. My second. I never even knew her name." Blake paused. "It's Sylvia. Sylvia Moriko."

"Will she wake up?" asked Weiss.

"The hospital just keeps growing," answered Blake. "She extended another root yesterday. At this point, it's a long shot."

Weiss closed the curtain. It was a lot to take in. "Blake. How are _you_ doing?"

"State your business."

Weiss turned. Blake sat down on the second bed. Avoiding personal conversations? Weiss had tried to make it non-confrontational. "That's an odd thing to be feeling."

"You came here for a reason, Weiss. Let's resolve it before you start yelling." Blake knew, or suspected, what was coming. But she was wrong about who it was coming from.

"Starting ten minutes ago, I'm supposed to speak to Colonel Amblik about..."

"Anything Lane can authorize, I can approve. Speak."

"SDC's been cut off. They want military escorts again."

"They?" Blake leaned back.

"We," Weiss admitted. "You're not the only one with a story to tell." She wasn't a Schnee-From-The-Schnee-Dust-Company Schnee, at least, not yet. Weiss kept her head above water with her father. And she _would_ remain heiress. She just... Weiss would be her mother's daughter, was all.

Blake gave a sarcastic smile. "And what are _you_ offering?"

"Assuming that the primary complaints revolve around the compensation and treatment of our laborers, and that this is _not_ a shakedown for bribes, I can grant five percent pay increase to our tiers one through three laborers as well as an independent workspace audit."

"Independent?" asked Blake.

"Accredited or government. You appoint."

"Make the raise eternal and I'll see it done by tomorrow."

"I'm authorized for six month's back pay on current employees, and you can have it. But I can't guarantee the raise lasts longer than this grimm situation."

"Fifteen percent." Blake extended her hand.

"Uh..." Weiss shook it. "Done." It was all so fast! She wasn't even allowed to bring the raises past nine percent, but as executor, she could make decisions outside the normal chain of command. Blake, on the other hand, seemed entirely comfortable holding power in her hands. "What position is a belle, anyway?"

"The Adam Taurus's successor kind."

What?

Adam was the leader of the white fang, meaning...

Weiss frowned.

What?

So while Weiss had been sliding out from under her father's thumb, Blake had been controlling the white fang? How did... Where was Adam?

Weiss's scroll buzzed, which was just fine for her, because she didn't want to think about what Blake was saying any more. She opened it.

"Yang says I won't believe what she found."


	8. Sound of Settling

"Public action," prompted Roman.

Neo had to dig herself out of this hole. ᴘᴜʙʟɪᴄ ʀᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴs.

"Roll it."

Neo gestured towards the dice, and Roman slid some across the game board to her reach. She rolled. One positive, three negative.

"Well, looks like your smear campaign caught the attention of some grimm. And they move on..." Roman rolled. "Onto one of your factories. That's just karma, you know."

She did.

Neo grabbed her hand of cards, kept facedown on the bed, and threw one onto the table. Huntsmen defenders. The process took more steps than she liked, since one of her hands couldn't easily hold cards.

"And the grimm is defeated! Draw and pass. Neo, maybe you should focus on profits and just try to cut me off before the PR lead carries me through the long game."

She passed back the dice and drew from the deck on her side of the table. Another huntsmen defenders. She'd try more PR next turn.

"My turn! Forty million off my production. Internal action, build a new factory. Public action, ad campaign." Dice. "Twenty five percent sales bonus. Another ten. Your turn, Neo."

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴄᴏʟᴀ sᴀɴ?

"Practically Mistral royalty. Owned the northern ports and theaters. You worked for her after you left me, right?"

sʜᴇ ғɪʀᴇᴅ ᴍᴇ ᴀғᴛᴇʀ sɪx ᴍᴏɴᴛʜs. ᴛʜᴇɴ ʙᴏss ᴄʜᴇss ᴡᴀs ʜɪʀɪɴɢ. 40 ᴍɪʟ.

Roman threw the colorful chips over to her. "I always did wonder what happened to her. Internal action?"

She slid one of the chips back over the table to him. ʙᴜʏ sʜɪᴘᴘɪɴɢ.

"But you already... Ooh. I like it." He tossed her the plastic bullhead to place with her others. "I'm sure you realize that this means war. How was Chess?"

ᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ ᴏғғ ʜᴀʟғ ᴀ ʏᴇᴀʀ. ᴘᴀʀᴛᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴛᴇʀᴍs. ᴘᴜʙʟɪᴄ ᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴘʀ. She slid the man two more chips, though she could barely reach the card table. ᴅᴏᴜʙʟᴇ ᴏʀ ɴᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ. Her wrists weren't hurting from all of the straining at the limit of her shackles, she had enough aura to manage. But she felt it every time it happened.

Neo rolled the dice. Plus two, minus two. Then again, plus four minus four.

"Well, you managed to not do further harm to yourself. Draw your card. I'm collecting 40 mil for my factories, since I can't transport goods from my newest. Internal action, layoffs. Do you think red will win?"

At first Neo thought game night was one of Roman's tests. Nope. He just liked games. And hey, maybe he'd let her out of she won. Maybe not. Some things were easy to tell with Roman, but Neo hadn't been great at reading him recently.

sʜᴇ ᴄᴀɴ. ᴄᴀɴ ɪ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ ᴅʀɪɴᴋ?

"Not near the board. Public action, espionage." He rolled. "One of your factories is disabled for two turns. Your move. Why were you thinking about Cola?"

Because Cola San locked Neo up for ten days before "firing" her on suspicion of spying. It had been her lieutenant Ironmark, but Cola hadn't given Neo paper or a scroll to explain. Cola hadn't found her very trustworthy even in the best of times. To be fair, Neo had been an experiment. Nobody else had wanted enforcers so young.

ᴄᴏʟᴀ ᴏᴡɴᴇᴅ ᴀ ᴄᴏʀᴘᴏʀᴀᴛɪᴏɴ.

"You're suggesting I shouldn't have just fired my men?" Roman slid her production money across the table. "Cinder kept some old contacts here in Mistral. She's collecting information on police and military. A lot going on these days. A lot of holes. So we have your huntress and the green goddess... And grimm and the real goddess."

ɪɴᴛᴇʀɴᴀʟ ᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ. ʀᴇᴏʀɢ. Neo put down three cards from her hand and drew three more. sʜᴇ's ɴᴏᴛ ᴍʏ ʜᴜɴᴛʀᴇss. sʜᴇ's ɴᴏᴛ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴀ ʜᴜɴᴛʀᴇss. She was... well. Roman was right about these things. ᴘᴜʙʟɪᴄ. sᴛᴏᴄᴋ ɪɴ ʏᴏᴜ. She slid over 60 million lien, then drew another card. It would be another few buys until she could head his board.

"I hope this means you've given up on your idiotic desire to be loved." Roman took the money. "But you can't go for a takeover when you don't beat me in net profit. Shipping is open again. I'll corner that market while it's ripe."

Roman was always right about these things. Why had she attacked him? What was she thinking? The world had never accepted or wanted her. Why would Jaune and Ren and Nora? Why would Ruby? Roman knew who she was. He had to. It was his semblance. Touching him touched his heart. If the only person that accepted you was the one that understood your soul, was that a blight on the world, or you?

Neo tossed Roman a card. Board injunction.

"Fine. PR boost."

Roman did love to be adored. Neo played a second board injunction.

"Oh, for crying out..." Roman pointed at her, still out of her reach. "This... is not sporting. Take your thirty two million, I'll have it back with your head in ten minutes."

Neo smiled. Behind Roman, a woman walked through the door. Yang. The sister. Looking much the same as last time Neo had seen her, with a more conservative top, a single long sleeve, and less even hair.

Neo had protected Roman from her before. How could she now?

And why was the room so cold?


	9. Ill Flower

1134 Chestnut Lane. Appropriate street name.

Well, maybe not. Yang didn't know her botany, but none of the trees growing out of the blue house looked like chestnut. No nuts had fallen onto the lawn, at least.

No house on the block had lights in the windows, despite the shade cast by the canopy. And the only car on the block had a tree trunk growing through it. Oak, maybe?

The tops of the trees on ground level sat thirty or forty feet up, while the ones growing out of roofs went higher. The ones lower down would naturally wither from lack of sunlight. Although, these trees hadn't exactly been grown by natural processes. Maybe Spring's Growth would sustain them indefinitely.

Enough. Torchwick hadn't reappeared. Yang approached the house and tried the front door, which was locked. She could give the lock a taste of Ember Celica, but if she was trying to be stealthy...

She could text Weiss, too. But Torchwick could still be moving. He could be planning.

Yang circled the house. A back window was warped from a trunk distorting the wall next to it, and the glass had mostly shattered and fallen to the ground. Yang froze some ice onto the remaining shards around the rim and climbed through.

The house was quiet, and felt fairly intact. Family of three, based on the photos on the wall. Nothing in the house was drawing electricity. She did a quick circuit of the floor. If Torchwick was upstairs, he'd be sleeping, and that could wait. Yang flicked on a light. The house _had_ electricity, but someone was keeping the place hidden. Even the wall clocks had been unplugged.

Basement, then. The steps down were behind an unlocked door. The understory was made of rough cement, and emptied out into a hallway. A door on either side, another at the end, and a light on in the middle.

The door to the left was open, and more light shined through the doorway. Yang padded over and listened to Roman Torchwick's voice from within. She hadn't heard it much. Just once on the news, once when she'd scrapped his mech and he ran away with that Neo woman, and when he got captured by Ironwood, after Yang had nearly been killed by that same woman. Torchwick was talking about layoffs, intel, and Cinder Fall.

"A lot going on these days. A lot of holes. So we have your huntress, and the green goddess, and grimm, and the real goddess." _Your huntress?_ The real goddess would have to be Cinder. Who was someone's huntress? Was Haven compromised?

Torchwick stopped speaking. Yang heard multiple quiet noises. Paper moving. Something sliding across a table. Something light, dropping from a distance. Yang got out her scroll. No signal. Torchwick was talking about... love?

"You can't go for a takeover when you don't beat me in net profit. Shipping is open again. I'll corner that market while it's ripe." He could only be speaking to somebody. Stayed in the basement for anonymity, used a radio or a signal-boosted scroll for communication, and probably wore headphones to reduce his chance of being overheard. Some other criminal head. Torchwick had focused on dust in Vale. Was his goal in Mistral the shipping?

Weiss and the SDC were having trouble with their shipping. The old white fang was denying them protection. Torchwick had worked with the white fang in the past.

"This is _not_ sporting. Take your thirty two million, I'll have it back with your head in ten minutes."

Torchwick was planning to kill. He'd done it before. He _was_ killing a criminal...

Yang would simply have to capture him, then capture them. Easy. She opened her bottles of water, stepped into the room, and became very confused.

Torchwick had his back to the door. He was sitting, staring angrily at a board game sitting on a card table, opposite the mute woman Neo. She was sitting on a bed that could charitably described as three rectangles of metal at right angles with a blanket on the top one, she was dressed in a loose-looking heather grey sweatpants and sweatshirt set, and her wrists were chained to the room's back wall. And she was smiling.

_What did I just get myself into?_

Then Neo saw her. The woman's eyes bugged out of her head, and she tried to point, but the length of her chain didn't let her extend her arm towards the door. She slid off the bed and tried to stand, but doing so bent her arms back and pinned her waist to the side of the bed.

It just made Torchwick look at her. "What's wrong, rum raisin?"

Neo reached for the scroll next to her on the bed. Yang pointed the water bottles in her hands and squeezed twin streams out at the man's feet.

Yang didn't _create_ ice, she condensed moisture in the air _into_ ice. So when she placed a bunch of moisture in the air all at once, right where she needed the ice to form, she wasn't quite as slow.

"Sorry about the cold feet, Torchwick." Wait, that wasn't what she was supposed to say. Ah well, too late now. Can't freeze a man's feet to the floor twice, they tend to see it coming. Yang opened Ember Celica.

"Should I recognize your voice?" asked Torchwick, craning his neck. "Oh! Yellow. I didn't know you were..."

Yang punched with her left arm, and Torchwick bent over backwards and caught her wrist inches from his face. So she fired Ember Celica. He pushed her arm away, so she pulled it back and chambered it. He somehow kept his grip, tearing his feet out of her ice, and turned to face her. She'd need larger water bottles next time.

Yang kicked him in the crotch, and when he groaned, she pulled up her fire from crystal in her pocket and punched him square in the jaw. The fireball consumed her arm instantly and knocked him to the ground, with her right gauntlet and glove falling on top of him. Her right sleeve hung limp past her stump, but at least the water from her arm melting had kept it from catching fire. She began to grow her arm back. It was second nature.

Torchwick didn't move. On the back wall, Neo did. She glared at Yang. No, she just hated Yang. She'd turned hate into a weapon and fired it through her eyes.

Keep it vague. "I don't know what he's been doing to you, but rest assured you'll both see whatever justice you deserve, so sit tight for a bit." Yang grabbed Torchwick's body. She'd have to secure him before he woke up.

Then Neo jumped for her. Her chain snapped taut and she spun around her wrists in a very undignified, and likely nausea-inducing, way.

Then she flew off of her chain somehow and her body slammed into Yang, who barely had time to brace. For... glass? Neo shattered on Yang's torso, revealing the real Neo, still attached to the wall, lifting and turning her bed. She turned it sideways and slid it across the floor in an arc, scooping Torchwick's body away from Yang and to the back wall. The little criminal dragged the bed back to her, Torchwick coming with it. Then she dragged it flush with the wall, keeping it sideways, and hunkered down in her three-sided metal fort.

Had she been able to take Torchwick out at any time with that bed? _Wait, bigger problem._ Did Torchwick have her key?

"Move that bed," Yang shouted. Shouting seemed right when dealing with Neo. First, Yang froze the ring connecting her chain to the wall. Then she started trickling ice on down, link by link, until the chain left her sight. "Freezing you solid will take time, but you're not going anywhere."

Yang got another six inches down the chain before Neo's hands raised, bound and empty. Her right hand was missing fingers, which Yang didn't recall from their fight. She peeked her head above the table and shook it. The gesture seemed... honest.

Yang melted the ice, so Neo kicked the bed away into the room's center. Then she pointed, as best she could, to her scroll on the floor across the room. It had been flung away at some point in the scuffle.

Yang walked over to it. "You busted it pretty bad." She turned back. "Now I'll be taking Torchwick."

Neo was kneeling on the ground in front of Torchwick's body, with her arms stuck above her, preventing her from sitting. Her face glared a challenge at Yang. It said, you have me, now what are you prepared to do?

She looked so vulnerable like that. Arms stuck straight up, unable to sit, unwilling to stand. The clothing sagging off of her wasn't just due to size, she'd been losing weight. Bags under her eyes. Hair unkempt, unwashed. Placing as much of her tiny body as she could between justice and her captor. _She tried to kill me last year._ What was Yang prepared to do to her?

"I just need to know he didn't have keys or something." Neo couldn't even reach her hands down to his pockets. "I won't hurt him. I'll keep him in the room and everything." Yang wished she'd read a book or two on psychology. What on earth was going on in Neo's mind? Was this a regular occurrence for her? Was this how she and Roman...

Torchwick slid across the floor. "Thank you." Neo's gaze flicked between the huntress and the unconscious criminal, deadly serious, like showing emotion would interrupt her concentration. Yang dragged Torchwick to the opposite wall, by the door, and got out her scroll. She'd need to head upstairs to get a signal.

ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴏɴ'ᴛ ʙᴇʟɪᴇᴠᴇ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ɪ ғᴏᴜɴᴅ.


	10. Innervoice

"Master Arc," Nubu whispered to Jaune. "Perhaps I should go through separately."

"A bit late for that, Nubu," he muttered back. "Why?"

"In training, yes," Ms. Rose was telling the guards. "From Vale. Beacon."

"I'm wanted," she whispered back. The others hadn't done anything wrong.

"You worry too much." Jaune smiled his perfect smile. _I know what you meant, Pyrrha. I understand now._ Nubu's cheeks reddened. She'd done everything wrong. Nobody had ever _taught_ her this! Jaune...

"Lie Ren, Jaune Arc, and Yang Xiao Long," Ms. Rose pointed at each of them in turn. "My uncle brought us out here for education after Beacon closed, but he got lost." Ruby wasn't a very good liar, as far as Nubu could tell. Which wasn't far. Maybe they would think she was sad about the things that saddened her.

The guard wasn't looking at Ms. Rose. He was looking at them. At Nubu herself. Thinking. Evaluating.

Why not give herself up? She hadn't been helpful, not in any ways that mattered. She was a liability. She could go back to her parents willingly, and apologize, and maybe they would let her continue to attend school. Why _had_ she joined the group, no single adult among them, in an attempt to take down a massive criminal enterprise?

Because they needed Pyrrha. And without Pyrrha, Nubu would have to do what she could. It wasn't much, it never was much. And now all she could to help do was leave.

 _But I know them now. Ms. Rose, unstoppable. Master Ren, unflappable. And Jaune._ Pyrrha always did have a thing for blondes. Her letters hadn't needed to mention names. Nubu had recognized them all anyway, once she met them.

Then Jaune had told her, simply and clearly, that she was not his. Which was fine. That was his decision. He was a smart man, for Pyrrha to love him. Too smart to have feelings for Nubu.

Was the guard _still_ looking at Nubu? Did he know what Ms. Xiao Long looked like? Was he testing her?

It wasn't a risk Nubu could let the others take. "Sir..."

The man blinked. "Yes, Yang? Sorry, I was miles away."

Nubu opened her mouth, then closed it again. She should probably say _something_. "Nothing. Sir."

"Ah well. You guys go ahead then." He motioned through the gate, to the city beyond. Nubu found that she could breathe. It was... it was a surprise. The group walked out to the road. It was only a few miles to the city proper, and to further transport.

For all of the increased border security, the city didn't look different. At least, not that Nubu could see from this end of the city. Just as they left it. Greener to the far south. Winter was finished.

Life goes on.

"So," asked Ms. Rose. "What next?"

Jaune strode past her before turning around. "We need more information. We regroup, plan, and take it from there. We're still the best people for the job." His eyes slid towards Ms. Rose. Some of them were more the best people than others. "But first, we need to eat real food, rest, and charge our scrolls."

Ms. Rose nodded. Jaune turned back around and started down to the city. Nubu turned on her scroll. They were going to be near outlets soon, and maybe local news would explain the mobilization.

Base sabotage... Grimm invasion... White Fang... Goddess. Nubu's eyes saccaded down the headlines.

"They know Pyrrha's dead," she said.

"Others have come from Vale," said Master Ren. "Word has finally spread wide."

Nubu unzipped her backpack and felt around for the paper. Somewhat crumpled, even inside its own pocket. Nubukha Nikos, 20,000 Lien Reward for return unharmed. The increased reward made sense now. The money Father would use to pay for it, too. The Nikos lived on memories of past glory and hopes for the future, and some hope burns brighter than others.

They also couldn't stay in their old hotel. How would Jaune or the others afford it?

"I have a private account for expenses," said Nubu. "I can arrange our stay."

"Where did you get the money?" asked Jaune.

Nubu looked at him. Where did he _think?_

"Well, thanks, Nubu," he accepted her. "When we reach the city, lead the way."


	11. Forecast Fire

_I am alive. I am free. I am a Branwen._

"Raven Branwen, look upon your goddess and realize your desire to please her. Where did those children go?"

The false maiden thought she knew so much. Everything, from what Raven could see. And she could back it up. Raven could _feel_ it. Could feel the draw. But compulsion didn't come easily, not to everybody. _I am free to think._

Besides. Raven wasn't human enough anymore. Cinder's storm washed over and past her. "A day out from the city." The corruption burned inside of her, detecting disloyalty. It spread through her organs, leaving distinct trails of agony radiating from her core. A lie. It was a lie. Raven Branwen could still resist.

As long as it wasn't a fair folk asking.

"The girl still makes Salem nervous," said Cinder. "Despite my countermeasures." Her intention was not to inform. In fact, learning would likely reduce Raven's usefulness. But since the deaths of her previous minions, Cinder needed someone to speak at. Raven couldn't just escape Cinder's audience. She had to rebel in other ways. Smaller ways.

Ways that made all the difference.

"I have been placed at your disposal, mistress." That was a truth, mostly. She had to do what Cinder asked. Down here, Raven had to do what everybody asked. Looked at that way, Cinder was one of the least important. Any fair folk could countermand her orders.

"I understand you'll be cooped up down here for a while. Taking pity, I've decided you'll accompany me on my next venture." Cinder needed her. Raven's mastery of the fair magics was top among the blighted. In her niche, when her use aligned with the intentions of the corruption, she was the strongest in the world. Besides, perhaps, fair folk themselves. Raven had seen them use powers almost as few times as she'd seen them leave their city in the first place.

The corruption had reached her skin, crawling out from her chest, gouging well-worn paths up the nerve endings in her limbs and neck. Cinder could notice. Cinder wouldn't notice. Raven was beneath Cinder's notice. Maybe she thought Raven was like the other blighted. That she would clutch her chest, and fall to the ground screaming, and silently decide to never defy the corruption again. Maybe she thought Raven already had. As Cinder must have, once.

_I am not you. I am not a slave. I am a Branwen._

The argent could once have been her daughter. Except, of course she couldn't. She was special. Raven had never been special. She was prosaic, a gift of the Branwens. Unworthy of notice. Maybe they didn't blight her correctly because she volunteered. Maybe it was because she'd been their first in so long. Or at least, the first to survive the process.

 _I did it for Summer. That's why it works._ She could resist, as long as it served the purpose of her surrender. She endured pain for her leader. Her _real_ leader. Raven Branwen's alpha wolf. _As long as I see the girl as you. As long as I see you in her._ She could leave all the notes she must.

"Well? Get going." It was a classic tactic of the abuser. Demand the impossible. Demand the orders be followed before they're given. _I am smarter. I am better._ The corruption seethed against her declarations.

Raven drew Gerfiwr Byw. She didn't _need_ it, but when most of the brain was focused on keeping blood vessels from bursting, rituals could help concentration. "Where to, mistress?" She didn't have to say that. Far from it. She could curse Cinder out, make a portal for herself, and get thirty or forty steps through it before weakness took her. _I am pragmatic. I am timely._ It made the corruption recede, just a little.

"I'm feeling cosmopolitan today. We're going to Mistral."

After all of the effort spent keeping Cinder from Ruby Rose, now they were headed to the same city on the same day. And Raven was thrice damned. She might have swayed Cinder if she'd been honest with Ruby's location. She might have swayed Cinder if she'd lied about Ozpin's. And now, she would have to watch Ruby challenge her and die.

This pain was new.

_I don't give up._

Raven sliced a hole in the world and watched Cinder step through. She could make one where she wanted, and see how a maiden's aura handles a bath in lava. It was so easy to do; only impossible. The thought made her flinch and then stumble as her corruption flared, but by then Cinder was on the other side. Nobody saw.

 _I was a mother._ Raven would do what she had to. Ruby Rose was her daughter, at least by proxy. Raven would follow Cinder's orders, what she must, but that didn't mean she would help her win. Cinder had already expended Inner Storm attempting to buy her allegiance. Raven needed to get her where she wanted to go before she could use it again.

If Raven had enough unblighted humanity left to feel love, something would help her. When the time came.

_I am a Branwen. I am a Huntress. I am Raven._

And if not, she would do it on her own. Somehow.


	12. Inhaler

"As in, directly for her." Yang listened to an answer. "Yes. Chestnut street. When I'm good and ready, that's when. Did she ever actually save her life?"

The house looked normal, as far as houses go, as far as Neo knew them. Besides all of the trees growing through it, but there weren't that many, and most of them were on the outer walls. And she got to sit down in a chair, albeit at a table in the center of the kitchen.

Neo _could_ rip the door off the refrigerator, and maybe even incapacitate Yang with an improvised chain-door. But she wouldn't be very inconspicuous moving around outside, and she'd have to leave Roman behind. Just seeing the outside through a window... Neo wasn't much for nature, but it was nice. Enough for now.

"With... as in my sister?" Yang spared Neo a glance, then a double take, then a triple take. Neo glanced back and tried not to react. Tried to focus on Roman. He could wake at any time.

"So Blake trusts her? She was defending Torchwick." Yang sighed. "It always is. No, don't put her on. I will. Yes, I will! Give me time. 1134. Yes. Yes, I picked up on that, thanks. What do you mean by _with_? With Ruby. ...Really?"

"I will." Yang made eye contact before lowering her scroll and pressing a few buttons. "Don't kill me, Neo. We're going to discuss this like civilized huntresses." The woman walked up to the distance Neo's chain could reach from the fridge, paused, walked up to Neo's current reach, paused, and finally dug a key out of her pocket and freed her.

Neo rubbed her wrists. Aura stopped damage, not pain. In two hours or three, she probably wouldn't notice the soreness.

Yang placed her scroll in Neo's hands. The only functioning one in the house, and she'd locked it into text entry mode. Now was when Yang asked her about Roman, and Cinder Fall, and why she was locked up, and Neo asked her in turn what was going on with her ice arm.

Yang reversed the chair on the other side of the table and sat down, resting her arms and chin on the back. "What," she asked, "are your intentions with my sister?"

Neo blinked several times, her eyes cycling through colors.

Yang seemed taken aback by the eyes, but soon recovered enough to prompt, "Well?"

ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀɴʏ.

"Blake said you were awful friendly."

Neo rose, took a few steps and stretched. Yang put on a relaxed front, but she was tense. From here Neo could see the toes of her boots pressed against the linoleum, ready to spring away at the sign of, well, anything.

Neo sighed and sat back down. She gained nothing spooking Ruby's sister. ʀᴜʙʏ ʟᴇғᴛ. ɪ ᴅɪᴅɴ'ᴛ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡ.

"I heard. What will you do when she comes back?" _When_. The woman had faith.

Well, Neo had to have some too. At least a little. At least that much.

ʟᴏᴠᴇ ɪsɴ'ᴛ ᴇɴᴏᴜɢʜ.

"Wrong."

Neo gave Yang no reaction. If it was wrong, she could take it up with Ruby.

"You love her."

Neo nodded. Yang already knew.

"And she didn't want you coming when she left."

Neo nodded again.

"Why? Does she love you?"

_If she'd done something terrible, something I could never understand, would I leave her?_

Neo looked down and shook her head. It had felt a lot more nuanced living it, but there was no flaw in her reasoning. Ruby _was_ wrong. First because love _was_ enough, and second because by that reasoning, whatever she felt for Neo couldn't be love.

"You don't want to see her again?"

Neo didn't look up. What good would that do?

Yang rubbed her hands together. How did that even work? Just sounded like skin and a glove. "Right. We should get Torchwick outside before the cops come."

Neo stood up and set her jaw. Maybe Yang _should_ be uncomfortable. ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ ᴛᴜʀɴ ʜɪᴍ ɪɴ.

"And why not?" Frost began to blossom up her sleeve in hexagons and lines.

ɪɴғᴏ ᴏɴ ᴄɪɴᴅᴇʀ. ʏᴏᴜ'ʟʟ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ sᴇᴇ ʜɪᴍ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ ɪɴ ᴄᴜsᴛᴏᴅʏ.

"I..." Yang pointed, and an icicle formed on the tip of her finger. "I'll ask Weiss what she thinks about that."

Neo had to keep her friend close. Tires screeched outside.

"Get Roman." Yang grabbed Iris and left the house.

No, Yang hadn't left the key on the table. She hadn't left it anywhere, that Neo could see. She knelt next to his limp body. Had Yang forgotten that she chained the man to the oven?

Forty seconds later, Neo opened the front door and walked out with one of Roman's ankles under each arm. Behind her, thumping down the thankfully low front step, came Roman, his body balanced on the center of the oven door. And behind that dragged the loop of chain connecting the two.

Yang was speaking with her teammate Weiss Schnee in front of a large shiny black sedan. "Neo! Scroll." Yang held out a hand.

Neo gave her scroll back, and Yang unlocked it. The phone started to beep. "You should mute that," suggested Schnee. "It'll keep going for a while."

"This has to have been recent," said Yang, silencing the beeps.

"Just after I started over. Latest from Vale says they took back Beacon Tower, with the help... of Professor Ozpin." Schnee made sure to slow down and emphasize the last few words of her reveal.

"You know, coming back from the dead is actually rather Ozpin-like." Yang shrugged, then checked her scroll. "Reminds me of something Tahki said. Looks like I have four hundred... five hundred... and thirty new messages."

"Yeah, some of those were me. Atlas Academy didn't agree with me. Neo." Weiss pivoted. "Get Torchwick into the back seat, then join him."

 _If she wants me free and with him, I can't object too harshly. She must know she can't beat me._ Neo opened the car's door and hefted the man up. The car's interior was divided, and it looked like there was a driver in the front. Of course Schnee would have one. Neo hauled Roman into the car then tried to lift him to the seat. _Maybe in this condition, she can. At least until I've eaten._ Moving a body was harder than throwing an opposing fighter. All of the weight just sags. Yang took a step over to the car to join her.

Schnee pointed and placed a glyph in the air blocking the open door. "Nuh uh. You, Yang Xiao Long, are going straight to the hospital and meeting Blake. No excuses."

"Weiss, do you _want_ to be alone in a car with Neo and Torchwick?"

"As a matter of fact, Blake had nothing but praise for Neo, as you'll know soon enough. Now we three are headed back to my cozy penthouse apartment in center city. " The glyph flickered as Weiss passed through, then went back to lazily rotating in the air. "It's a short walk to the hospital. And if you're good, I'll send a car for you afterwards. And good job rescuing Neo."

Weiss plucked Iris from Yang's grasp and slammed the door in her face. Yang stood motionless on the curb until the car turned a corner and Neo lost sight of her through the tinted windows. Weiss settled into the rear-facing seat opposite Neo.

"Now then. Neopolitan. Blake trusted you with her life, hard though it is to believe. And Ruby before her."

Neo had no scroll with which to respond.

"Yang had a lot of reasons to come to Mistral, some better than others. Personally, being with my team is the best little time I've had in my life. And Ruby is key to that. There's something very freeing about letting someone else take all the responsibility." Weiss stared out of a window. "Why I can't detach like that in Atlas, I don't know. I think the trust must be given, never forced. Anyway, if you still want to help her, and help humanity, and help me, you're going to help me figure out where she went."

Roman snorted and raised a hand, only for the oven door to prevent it from reaching his face. Neo leaned over and brushed the hair from his eyes. Well, away from his left eye. He didn't seem to mind it on his right. She avoided his skin, the man had suffered enough.

Roman blinked. "Elloizequeen," he muttered.

"And maybe help yourself, too," Weiss added. "Are you hungry? I haven't eaten in hours. Driver!"


	13. The Calling

It was surreal being back in... in civilization. There had been people up north, but travelers had been a curiosity. Now they'd sunk into Mistral and blended. Strangers ignored Ruby on sidewalks, cars drove by on paved roads, and signs advertised goods.

This was what she'd been building towards. What Ruby had _wanted_ to happen. Back, safe and sound. No further casualties.

So why did Ruby feel worse than she ever had?

"I have left a message for your parents, Jaune. But the scroll is dead." Ren handed it to him anyway. "We will need outlets to send more."

They'd been so close to the fair city, wherever or whatever that was, then they'd been on a ragged retreat ever since. Ruby had been in charge then. Before that, she'd been the one who decided to follow Qrow. The one who agreed to his plans. None had spoken against her.

_I left Qrow there. I left Neo here._

Even Qrow's plan had failed, thanks to her weakness. Now Jaune took up the lead, because Ruby told him to. Her last act of leadership: Admitting her failure. Admitting that her decisions lead only to death.

Nubu left the bank holding an envelope. "My emergency account will cover room and board for a week. Let's check in."

Jaune and Ren followed her down the street. Jaune turned around. "Are you coming, Ruby?"

_Nope!_

"Yeah, Jaune, I'm right behind you."

 _You don't get to follow. You don't_ get _to fail._

_You're a leader._

Ruby grit her teeth and fell into line after them. Jaune would tell her where she had to go. He still...

Ruby's team hadn't been around for a long time. Blake wouldn't even follow her when their paths crossed. Jaune had Ren. It was something. Anything.

Then Ruby saw a flash from a few blocks ahead, from a window high in the air. The tower in the center of Mistral. The tallest building. And something inside it had exploded.

 _Go._ Ruby jumped over Ren's head and shot down the block before the sound reached her ears.

The street below the blast wasn't crowded, but neither was it empty. Ruby didn't have time to look up at the damage. She opened her arms and prepared to close them as she aimed herself down the sidewalk. A blink, and Ruby held a man in one arm and a boy in her other. She released them and skidded to a halt at the end of the block, propelling herself back. Up and down the block was too far. There were still people in the impact zone. Ruby planned her route. A pair of women with space between them, a building across the street, a gap in car traffic. She burst into petals.

Somewhere down the street, the first person screamed.

The pair was lighter than Ruby had guessed, so her liftoff shot her into the building across the street about ten feet up instead of five. She'd cracked the sidewalk where she'd jumped, an imminently pointless observation, as well as the brick wall she'd used to stop. There was a teen boy in a T-shirt below a concrete shadow, just starting to look up. A girder hit the sidewalk ten feet behind him. Ruby dropped the women she held and leapt back across the street like a shot, arms out to grab.

Her trajectory brought her past the boy, who she grabbed around the shoulders and cradled to her chest. He nearly slipped from her grip but they shattered together through a tower window, broke the room's door, flew through the open doorway across the hall, and demolished a table in the room beyond. Behind her, Ruby heard shouts drowned out by a cacophony of crashes and the screech of tearing metal.

Ruby let the shards of conference table hit the walls and fall back to the floor while she breathed. She was inside the tower's first floor, with a boy about her age flailing around in her cloak. A few seconds later, he freed his head and the crashes outside got quieter. In their place was screaming.

_You don't get to be a failure._

"Be safe," Ruby told the boy, looking at the window they'd crashed through. Half of the wall next to it was gone, replaced with haphazard shards of steel-reinforced concrete. She shot through a gap. She'd been moving too quickly, acting too quickly, to see more of the street than where she'd directly focused. But there had been more people.

They weren't here anymore. Some lighter debris were still landing, so Ruby rushed across the street. Both of the women she'd dropped had hurt their legs. _Sorry._ Through the cloud of dust, she could see bodies peeking out from the rubble. Ruby ran over to one, not quite able to sprint, and began to dig it out. _Him_ out. Where were Jaune and the others? Would they be able to see her from outside the cloud?

"Move!" shouted a man, shoving Ruby down. A flaming piece of wooden desk landed on the buried man, _the body_ , breaking apart and shooting flaming woodchip shrapnel into Ruby and the man next to her. He had some sort of aura, thank dust. Older, in a suit. Ruby's was low. She'd been reckless.

Ruby stood up and helped the man to his feet. In turn, he pulled her along until fifty feet from the impact zone. Ruby was numb, lightheaded. She couldn't quite feel her weight when she stepped. Too much semblance too fast. She leaned against one of the cars stuck in gridlock and slid to the ground, focusing on her breathing. Slower. Slower. There were still more people. Some could be alive.

"Ruby?"

Three cars down, a door was open. Out of a black limousine stepped Weiss Schnee, her brow furrowed.

Ruby sprang to her feet and dashed over. "Weiss, there are people hurt, we have to help them before..."

Another blast of thunder, and the screaming increased in volume. Weiss looked up and placed a glyph fifteen feet above her head, large enough to touch buildings on both sides of the street. Rubble crunched into it, spreading dirt and dust, plumes billowing off the edges.

"Ruby, what are you doing here?"

Ruby couldn't see more than ten feet in front of her. "I'm here with Jaune. And Ren. And... and a girl. We were battling Cinder, and the fair folk, but we had to come back, we couldn't... I couldn't..." Her eyes watered from the dust. Aura stopped damage, not pain.

"Ruby." Weiss placed hands on Ruby's shoulders and gave them a squeeze. "There's somebody here you need to see."

Ruby looked up while Weiss stepped into her car. Weiss was placing glyphs underneath glyphs and letting the upper ones lapse, dropping the rubble down inches at a time. She'd been doing that while talking? While Ruby was still struggling to catch her breath? She was doing that now, yelling and ordering "Come out!" to someone else..?

Weiss finished yanking her companion out the door. Neo, dressed in speckled grey, still as she could be and staring at the street. Trying to fade away.

 _My other mistake. Abandoning the one person who counted on me._ It was still too dusty for rescue.

"Weiss, how do you know Neo?" Ruby paused. "And why are you in Mistral? And, hold on, _how_ are you in Mistral?"

"Yang, Yang, and my father. Neo, say hello." Weiss walked behind the woman and shoved her forward.

Neo stumbled into Ruby and looked up. She didn't need words. Her face said, _I'm sorry. I did my best. I did all I could._ And _please forgive me._

There was another explosion, this one from further away. Ruby couldn't see anything through the dust, save Weiss's glyph above them. She decided to wait a minute before worrying. "Since I left, have you..."

Neo shook her head. But then, Ruby could have guessed. Because that's what Ruby had needed her to do.

There was one person who Ruby could lead. All she had to do was let them follow. No, that wasn't quite right. There was one person Ruby could stop failing. All she had to do was agree to work with her again. Once more. There was one person Ruby could accept, wholly and completely. All she had to do was bare her soul and be accepted in turn.

There was one person Ruby could love. All she had to do was stop denying her feelings.

Ruby lifted Neo into a kiss. The woman melted into her arms, first afraid to react, then returning it with passion. Ruby cried. Dust.

Ruby opened her eyes and the world was silver. No. Her eyes were blazing, with silver shockwaves pulsing out from them to the beat of her heart. They raced across her skin, across her clothing and aura, making shimmering echoes across Neo where they touched.

"I love you," Neo spoke, loudly and clearly, and Ruby didn't need to hear anything else. They smiled.

Ruby's exhaustion changed to strength. She could _control_ it. Yes. Silver. It could only mean one thing.

Weiss pointedly cleared her throat before pointing to her scroll. "When we were on our way here, before the signal was lost, reports said a woman was throwing fire through the upper floors. Sound familiar?"

Cinder Fall. "Then I'll go." Weiss was better down here, anyway. She'd swapped her giant glyph to a dozen smaller ones, tilted, sliding the debris down into gaps between cars.

"Get going, Silver-eyed warrior," said Weiss. "If you're going to make a habit of saving kingdoms, I'll just have to keep supporting you."

Ruby smiled. "You are the best teammate I could ever hope for, Weiss. Save who you can. Tell Jaune he's doing a great job. Tell Ren he was right about me, and that he should try it himself sometime. Nubu... Meet Nubu. She'll like you."

Ruby was light on her feet. So light that she stepped right off of them and into the air. It was a bit precarious and took concentration, but she could float in whatever direction she wanted.

The hows, the whys, those weren't important. Successes, failures, those could wait.

Cinder fall was here, and Ruby finally had the power to stop her. She floated five feet up. Ten. Then a weight tugged on her leg, and Neo became visible, hanging from Ruby's boot.

Ruby heard glass shatter blow her. "Hey!" shouted Weiss. "Come back here!"

Ruby smiled. This was right. If it was honesty that unlocked this power, she would need some help. From the one person who couldn't lie to her. The one who had given everything for her. She reached down a hand and lifted Neo into a hug.

They broke free of the dust and rose through the brisk spring air.


	14. Cascade

"Yang Xiao Long is" the man's voice cut off with a ɴᴏ sɪɢɴᴀʟ. Blake sighed and put her scroll away. The guard hadn't sounded urgent. Just telling her that one of her disreputable friends was visiting, someone from her past. _I'm doing what I think is best for us. I'm fighting for the faunus and humanity both._ Some of them could see it. _I'm not running._

She wished she was. Just open the window, anchor gambol, and swing away... Yang would be up any minute. The girl who, from what Weiss had said, had recovered remarkably well from her dismemberment. The girl who was using every opportunity to delay or run from this meeting herself.

Yet here she was. Blake took a breath and collected herself before removing the board from her doorway. They'd moved rooms earlier, but the new room had taken even less time to lose its proper door to roots and warping. It was only for privacy anyway; the floor full of white fang was protection enough for the Green Goddess. For Shell.

Blake swallowed and stepped into the hall. Yang was only a few doors away. At least Blake's guards weren't making a production this time. More forewarning, less Schnee.

Yang followed her into the room, and Blake replaced the board. It was something to do. She moved back next to her bed. Yang was standing, so Blake didn't want to sit.

Blake looked up at Yang's face. Yang was staring. Blake flinched and looked away.

After a minute, Yang tried. "...So."

"He-hello, Yang."

Yang took a breath and released it. Then she yanked off her glove, revealing a hand of moving, articulated ice. "I don't blame you for this."

A maiden did it, Weiss had explained. Which had necessitated a whole other series of explanations. Well, for the ice part, not the lack of flesh and blood. "Adam is dead," said Blake. "Neo killed him. And I did what I could from there. I didn't run again." It sounded so weak. She didn't screw everything up _again._ Did Blake really think it was all right to only ruin Yang's life once?

"You're wondering if you could face Adam, even now." Yang pointed an icy finger at Blake, and Blake felt a chill. "You never got the chance to confront him. You're wondering if you'll have his control looming over you for the rest of your life."

"It's not that simple," On second thought, maybe Blake _should_ sit. "He trained me. And when he died, I took over the white fang. It wasn't bloodless. I'm still leading them in all but name." Blake met Yang's gaze. "I can't _defeat_ him, Yang. I _became_ him."

"Pff." Yang rolled her eyes. "That's dumb. Adam tried to destroy Vale, and you stood up to him. Then you saved Mistral. That's the opposite of Adam. Try harder, Blake."

"Fine." Blake brought her knees onto the bed and hugged them. _I owe her this. Much more than this._ "I don't fear or hate Adam. I still love him. That's what scares me."

"Hmm." Yang sat down in the room's chair. "Maybe. There's more. That doesn't explain how you're acting now."

Acting now. With Adam gone, out of the way. Nobody here but a comatose woman and Yang. She'd been fine talking to Weiss. "I've hurt people. A lot of them. More than I should've. When I sleep, I see their faces." Blake rested her head on her knee. "Your face."

Yang nodded. "I'm sorry I caused you pain, Blake. But recently I've been thinking that everything might just happen for a reason. I know now why I was sent.

"I'm sorry for what I've done. I hope you'll understand. And if she's still aware, somehow, I hope she'll understand too."

She...

Was the room _colder?_

Blake jumped to her feet and opened Shell's curtain. The woman was where Blake had left her, lying in her bed. Only now, the entire bed was encased in ice, and Shell with it.

"You..." Blake spun on Yang. "Undo it!"

"Cinder's here," said Yang, throat tight. "I can't."

"Get rid of it!" Blake drew in dust, throwing a fire shadow at Yang. Then a second. Yang held her arm up to block, melting her hand.

"I'm sorry, Blake." Yang sounded sincere. Her hand was refreezing already.

Could she burn the ice away? What if it Yang made more? What if the fire did more damage? What if what if what if what if what if "Yang, please!"

"I'm sorry."

The world went green.

Blake was Remnant. Spinning in space with a moon that once was whole. The sun caressed her grasses and the wind blew through her leaves. She sent down roots.

Blake was Mistral. Warmth had come, melting the snow. The land had slumbered in silence. Now, she sprouted.

Blake was a forest. From a hospital up to the peaks of mountains, she stood to attention. A sentry against those that would do her people ill. Blake blossomed.

Blake was life. There was so much of it, everywhere. The souls swelled, and spun, and flowed into her. A million assembled hopes dreams wants needs loves fears cries and endings entered her aura.

Then Blake was Blake again. In a hospital room with a teammate and a frozen corpse, sounds of fighting bringing guards to her doorway. Her senses expanded, and Blake saw Yang. Yang was thinking about fairies and maidens. Growth and Maiden's Sight, the powers of Spring. Deeper. Yang was on the first floor while a feed of Cinder Fall went dead, making up her mind. Deeper. Yang was telling Weiss, "She won't want to, but we _must_ get her to Ruby." Deeper. Yang was sitting under the crest of a wave, learning how grimm were created. Deeper. Yang was watching a man in a mask stab her partner, realizing how far she would go to protect her.

Almost a second had passed. The board was knocked from the doorway, Alba leading the charge. Blake wanted her to stop. She understood. She forgave. It was impossible to do one without the other.

So Alba stopped, roots ensnaring her limbs. And the others stopped, the roots of the doorway expanding, twisting, moving to bar the way. The white fang fell silent, and the green faded.

Blake coaxed one of Sylvia's sprouts around her left wrist, and held her right hand out to Yang.

"Is it... Did it work?" Yang asked, placing her hand in Blake's. Even more than whether Blake still loved her, Yang had one question. Was Blake changed by the process, or was she still whole? Did Blake Belladonna survive the transition?

Blake pulled Yang to her and pushed off through the window. Plummeting to the ground in a shower of glass, she clutched Yang closer and called to a tree below them. Yang knew that time was short. She would understand if Blake explained on the way.


	15. Walls

Neo was fast. It was how she fought. Move with speed and precision to neutralize enemy offense. Her own strikes could come in time. A fight was won when the enemy's spirit was broken, and nothing could destroy an attack like empty space beneath a blade.

Neo watched Ruby in awe.

Ruby had... _transcended._ Her attacks, her movements, they weren't faster than Neo. They were just _better._ Ruby moved with grace, her every turn a pirouette, her every step a glide. She still had her scythe for large-scale positioning, and worried only about the small.

"This is futile," said Cinder from above, a blast of flame melting another room. She'd already burnt much of the roof off the tower. Neo sprinted forwards.

"Sorry, Cinder." Why did Ruby talk? Things would be so much easier if she didn't talk. Still, Neo could forgive her, hearing her voice. "But after I'm done with you, your bosses are next!"

Ruby, as predicted, jumped into the open.

Cinder, as predicted, sprayed fire. A roaring jet of flame carved through the floor, tracking Ruby as it went.

Neo tackled Ruby out of the way and glassed, flipping in midair around the girl to pull her into a carry. She landed, jumped, pushed off a wall, and threw Ruby upwards. Ruby reappeared feet from Cinder's position as their glass statues melted. Right palm forwards, glowing silver. _I can't explain everything,_ Ruby had said. _But I can beat Cinder._

Ruby touched Cinder's chest, and a shockwave of silver blasted from the point of impact. Both were flung away from the point of contact, and Neo caught Ruby where she landed. Unharmed. Cinder shot back and down, landing on an intact segment of roof and skidding backwards.

Cinder smiled, and Neo ducked behind a wall. _Also unharmed._ "Fool me twice, shame on me!" Cinder shouted as Ruby got to her feet. "It hurt so much last time you burnt Salem's magics out of me, I decided not to get more."

If Ruby's new silver powers didn't work on Cinder, the battle was much less certain. No, victory was nearly impossible. But Ruby was awake, alert, and far from giving up. So it fell to Neo to ensure she stayed alive until she decided to retreat. Neo knew a lot of things about Ruby. Like the fact that nobody could make her leave if she didn't want to.

Once they were safe, Neo would learn more.

Ruby snuck closer, through some of the rooms that still had ceilings. Neo followed. "At least," Cinder's voice reverberated through the building, "until I exterminate your line."

They passed a hole in the ceiling. Neo glassed and jumped through it. Cinder wasn't in the air above, so either she'd flattened herself to the roof somewhere or she was down on their level. Knowing Cinder's ego...

Neo dropped back down and reappeared. She tapped Ruby and pointed around them in a flat circle. Ruby nodded, shifting her scythe in her hands, and ran through a doorway into a room missing its top and most of its sides. She dodged a blast of fire from the right and took off towards its source.

 _In for a penny, in for a lien._ Neo jumped back through the roof and sprinted right. Below she could see Ruby struggling to score a hit on the woman. _If she sees an attack coming, she blocks it._

Eyes silver, Neo glassed and jumped down behind her. She opened Iris in midair, and used the canopy to hook Cinder's arm. Cinder turned sideways at the pull, and Ruby swung at her back.

Then Neo fell through the floor. No, something on the floor. A muddy mess of red and black shadows had appeared, and Neo and Cinder were sinking through it. There was a familiar tearing sensation. "Neo!" shouted Ruby, reaching out her hand.

And Neo was falling through the sky. The tower was next to her, thirty feet away. Cinder, floating in the air, grabbed a handful of Neo's hair and tossed her. Neo couldn't hold on. She couldn't fight Cinder's strength with strength. She held Iris up to slow her fall, to survive.

Cinder looked down on her and smiled. Another one of the holes appeared behind her, and Cinder moved through it and was gone. Neo could float peacefully down to the ground.

 _No!_ Neo fired Iris's canopy down and behind her, accelerating up to the hole in a burst of recoil. She flipped and made her body into a ball, and felt the tearing again. Beyond the boundary, she landed on her stomach next to Cinder, who was busy knocking Ruby through a wall. The portal behind her disappeared.

 _They can appear vertically and horizontally. I can go through them alone._ This wasn't an ability Cinder had used before. At least, not in front of Neo.

_We can't win, Ruby. Run. Please._

Neo flipped to her feet and stabbed at Cinder with Iris's blade. The woman dodged out from between the pair, and Neo pulled away from Ruby's wide lunge. Cinder blocked the scythe with her right hand and shot fire at Neo with her left. Without Iris's canopy, Neo had to duck and roll away, the fire melting a wall. _Barely a distraction._ Once she had cover, she glassed and ran in for a jump-kick to the spine. The impact knocked Cinder's breath out and hit her into Ruby's next strike. Crescent Rose flung the woman back again, so Neo punched her in the face. It didn't seem to do much to damage, but it made Neo feel better.

An explosion of fire threw Neo and Ruby away. Neo palm-struck a wall and rebounded, her arc bringing her straight over another portal that had opened. Cinder wasn't even looking her way. It was...

_I've seen these before. But it wasn't Cinder making them._

Neo landed hard and did her best to distract Cinder from Ruby. A feint, a roll, a strike with little power. If the portals can be made instantly, Neo was already dead. So she might as well assume they take time to place. And probably only one at a time. Probably not too quick after the last. Assume the parameters that allow life. Stay light, don't move predictably. Wait for a sign.

A miniscule waver in the air was all the warning Neo got. Had she been moving any faster, she would've run straight into it. Instead, Neo stopped and watched while the portal blossomed in midair. Behind it, hazy and insubstantial, was a face in a mask.

 _The woman who saved Yang._ Why?

Neo owed her a lot. She'd prevented Neo from making a mistake. Something Ruby would never have forgiven. But Neo did _not_ owe anybody her life.

A bullhead surfaced in the nearby air and began firing at the combatants. Ruby ducked behind a wall, while Cinder took a more proactive approach to the pilot's wellbeing. Neo jumped for the woman she'd seen. The woman she'd been too frightened to attack before.

Before, the woman had attacked her to save a defeated nonentity. Now, she meant to save the woman trying to kill Ruby. Two different wars, two sets of combatants. She'd even switched sides. The only common thread was attacking Neo both times. Was Neo the target?

If so, Neo could draw her away. Trading herself for a stronger opponent would help Ruby in the long run. But were the portals aimed at Neo her only contribution? Why none at Ruby?

 _There._ She was translucent, like she'd half-glassed. It wasn't something dust could do. Was it her semblance? Were the portals? Were they connected, like Neo's glassing was to her invisibility?

Her red and black clothing and grimm mask were obvious. _I never thought I could beat the last iaido practitioner wearing red and black and a grimm mask. I just had to get creative._

Neo harried with Iris's blade and the woman brought out a massive dust blade to block. Then the woman swung back, blinking fully into sight. Neo jumped back, but didn't clear the edge in time, taking the hit on Iris's side and getting thrown into a wall. _This is when I need the canopy. Lets me close the distance._

The masked woman stabbed for Neo again and again. Against a wall, Neo couldn't leave her range, so she knocked the blade to the side each time. The dust sliced through the wall like butter, each score creeping a little closer to Neo. Neo was hitting her limits of both energy and skill. Weiss hadn't had time to feed her. And Neo hadn't fought since the invasion. Hadn't walked. Aura could maintain a physical state, mostly, but when your opponent was stronger than you at your peak, could beat you when you had both halves of your weapon...

The woman abandoned stabs and came in for a kick. _I'll need to get dirty._ Neo rolled under the leg, while the woman's kick shattered the pockmarked wall behind her. The debris fell through the air and down to the street.

Neo rolled past the woman's planted leg and sprung to her feet. She ripped the woman's mask off with one hand while swinging Iris around with the other. The face under the mask looked almost familiar.

The blade bounced off the aura on the woman's eye and she grabbed Neo's arm. It had been a long shot, of course. Healthy undamaged aura wouldn't fold to a single strike from a blade. But Neo had to try.

Neo hooked her legs around the woman's torso to anchor herself, but the woman had reach, and pulled her too far out to get a solid hold. "She likes you," the woman said.

"Please, no," whispered Neo.

The woman took two steps and tossed Neo. Neo grasped in vain for purchase on her bracer before falling down past the floor and into open air.

With no canopy, Neo had no way to slow herself down. Her aura was under half. Enough to absorb a fall from thirty or forty feet, if she was careful. Not terminal velocity.

Could she aim for something soft? Street level was still obscured by dust. There was no way to aim. Not until... Would the cloud slow her down? Could she get all the way across the street and slow down on the edge of the next building? In three or four seconds, she would reach its height.

Was that it, then?

Well, it wasn't so bad. Neo had made peace with Roman, sort of. She'd seen Ruby again. They'd kissed. It made Neo feel all kinds of special. And she went down with pink eyes. The end of the battle had been fun. She'd never even had a chance, but fun.

Ruby would be all alone, but maybe she would realize she could run. Maybe she would figure it out. Hopefully. It was all that was left. _Goodbye, Ruby. Roman. Ruby, your friends were nice. Tell them that._

Ruby had never told Neo she loved her. Hopefully she wouldn't beat herself up about it.

Fifty feet below Neo, in the air, another portal opened up. Out fell the canopy to Neo's umbrella. It was open, and wind resistance flipped it upside down.

Neo took Iris's blade and aimed it, but the canopy kept moving in the wind. Neo corrected. When she reached the canopy, Iris slid into place and locked.

Neo pivoted around it and burned out the rest of her aura keeping her arm in her socket. Somehow, she was alive.

 _She likes you._ Then came a portal. Not one to bring her back up the tower. One to let her drift to a landing. It would be minutes before Neo could get back even if she sprinted up every flight of stairs.

The woman wanted Neo gone. She deliberately _didn't_ want her dead. The woman was helping Cinder, removing half of the team trying to kill her. Yet she didn't want to let Neo die? Because she cared too much about Ruby?

Then what was she going to do if Cinder killed her?

Neo looked up, hoping to catch a glimpse of any good sign from above. All she saw was an umbrella.


	16. Sound Pollution

Whenever they dipped closer to the ground, thoughts and ideas flooded into Blake's head. A few from the streets or near windows were about Blake's method of transportation. Most others were of anxiety or confusion: The loss of all signal, so soon after regaining the CCT, was hitting Mistral hard. Global connection. If only.

There were other, more personal feelings, glanced at but not delved into. When Blake pulled back up into the air on the crest of her green waves, they vanished from her mind like shadows. She tried to stay higher when she could. Maybe Shell had gotten used to this, somehow. Blake didn't see how she could spend much time near people any more.

Besides, Yang didn't want to admit it, but she really liked heights. Blake could hear the huntress grinning in her vines, strapped securely to Blake's back.

The buildings were rising, and now Blake could skim their rooftops, staying away from the dense streets but never quite leaving the inhabitants of the upper floors. At least they, from the sketches Blake could overthink while shooting by, were concerned more with simple, trivial matters. They might inspire contempt, but they wouldn't draw Blake down into darkness. Becoming elitist hadn't even been on Blake's radar. She seemed to stumble into these things.

 _That's the tower up there._ Obviously. Blake's eyes were better than Yang's, and she could see the smoke coming from the top floor of the building. Cinder wrecking Remnant's lifeline on the same day Ozpin, of all people, rebuilt it.

"That's the tower up there." Yang pointed her arm over Blake's shoulder. _Cinder is immune. Element and Inner Storm._

"I see it," agreed Blake.

"Cinder is immune," continued Yang, shouting into the wind. _Unnecessary._ "Maiden powers don't work on other maidens. The inner ones. She can still shoot fire and you can still grow, but she can't control you and you can't read her." _Liability._

"Shell must have been in hiding," Blake shouted back. "Maybe she didn't like the odds in this fight."

"Bringing others could be a liability," agreed Yang. Maybe Shell, Sylvia in Yang's mind, wanted a clean duel. Who could say? _Unnecessary._ "Do I even need to talk?"

"I like your voice," Blake shouted over the wind. "And you know you shouldn't come with me. But if you ask, I'll let you." Feeling the wants of others, their desires... How could a maiden ever say no? It was a good thing she wouldn't be able to see Cinder's soul. Blake might just be tempted to let her finally achieve what she'd worked so hard to do.

Less than a dozen blocks to go. Yang's mind was racing. Would she be helpful fighting fires on the ground? Could she survive a fall from a skyscraper? Would Cinder Fall know her name? Would she have Inner Storm ready? Would Blake lose tactical competency if Yang's life was on the line? What if she saw Yang die? Too many questions. Yang couldn't make a reasoned decision in time. She wanted Blake to make it for her. But she knew, tucked away in that brain of hers, that Blake didn't have the ability to reason _faster_ or _better_ than others.

What was floating down the side of the building?

 _What's that?_ Echoed Yang. Human eyes.

The nearest buildings to the Mistral CCT were barely half its height, so Blake's vines only brought them sixty floors up before they crossed the street and punched anchors through some windows. Above and to the left was a small figure in grey holding a circle of pink. Blake neared her, and she touched Neopolitan, and for the first time truly met her.

Neo _wasn't_ a bad person. She'd killed, but she didn't harbor hate, which put her at least one step above Blake herself. Neo was, however, bad at _being_ a person. She didn't quite get how to interact with anything more complicated than a game. She had selflessness down, to a bizarre degree, and various elements of devotion. Few happy memories. Few friends. Blake wasn't one.

Neo was falling from a battle between Cinder Fall and Ruby Rose, awakened in silver. Blake dipped back into Yang's mind to fill out the details. Argents were resistant to maiden powers as well. They could excise fair magic, but Cinder had none. Blake could also connect one more thread between the two. Cinder's mysterious teleporting companion, and a woman Yang had been dreaming of for months, years. One she'd seen use magic of the fair folk.

Also relevant was the fact that Cinder Fall had never ordered Neo to do a thing, despite knowing her name from the year she employed her. Cinder couldn't use Inner Storm. _Probably_. If her goal was to kill Ruby, using Neo would be the fastest route, given how Yang had told Weiss to maneuver the two together. Argents were maddeningly less binary than maidens.

Blake climbed up to Neo and grabbed her with a vine. "You're not done yet," Blake told the assassin. "Cinder's not dead. Yang, protect your sister. That's your duty." The three ascended. Neo was confused, terrified, elated. All appropriate. She would act when the time came.

Finally, her vines reached the building's battlefield. On the edge of the crumbling floor, an unmasked figure stood waiting, unsheathing a long red blade.

_I AM FREE I AM NOT A MURDERER I AM FREE I AM ALIVE I AM FREE I LOVE I AM FREE I WILL RESIST I AM FREE I AM A BRANWEN I AM FREE I WILL NOT KILL MY DAUGHTER I AM FREE IAMFREEIAMFREEIAMFREEIAMFREE_

Blake screamed and clutched her head. She moved her passengers to somewhere, somewhere else. She... that voice. That feeling. That power!

That _aura_. Half of a soul, screaming twice as loud. No. Ten thousand times louder. The woman should've thought herself to death in a manner of minutes, if only such a mercy had been possible. How long had she been living like this?

Blake couldn't sense a thing. The crashes of willpower from that woman's head, did they ever stop? Couldn't she see how she was polluting the world around her?

Blake blinked tears from her eyes. She was the maiden of spring. She was about to do battle with the maiden of fall. Argents can purge fair magic.

All can change in time.

Her eyes were open, and Blake could see where she was. Her vines had grown, bringing her thirty feet straight out from the tower. She'd left the range of all thoughts but her own.

Blake grew higher, until she could see the battlefield from above. Ruby, exhausted, thrown from Cinder's attack. Yang, helping Ruby as best she could. Neo, umbrella out, zapping around the Branwen, accumulating cuts and rips in her clothes. _Did I just bring a combatant with no aura back into this fight? What possessed me to do_ that _?_

Neo's desire to come back. Being a maiden kept getting more complicated.

Blake grew a lattice of vines across the top three floors of the building. Unlike seeing thoughts, or minds, or souls, or whatever it was that Maiden's Sight granted, this came easily. She wanted reach, she wanted control. Shell had built a wall miles across even before the other defenses had crumpled and she'd had to overextend. A grid a few hundred feet across should be nothing.

Then Blake grabbed Cinder. The vines wrapped her arms and pulled them down, forcing her to kneel while Ruby slammed the woman with her scythe. Cinder grimaced and released a fireburst. Ruby dodged to her left, where Blake raised a wall of vines to shelter her.

Cinder looked up. Blake smiled and trapped her again. _Come then, maiden of fall._

Cinder combusted the vines and shot into the air. Ruby looked up at the pair. She rose from the floor, inches into the air, then wobbled and landed. Then she looked at Blake, shook her head, and ran towards Neo and Raven. Yang followed.

Blake began preparing her vines. She grew a net to catch herself if Cinder burnt her harness. And a backup harness and supporting weave. And a second. Below, Raven dodged through the jungle Blake created, on the run from the huntresses. She jumped in and out through portals, harrying, keeping them on their toes. But she didn't seem to be doing much damage.

Raven didn't want to kill. That was just fine. Blake brought up a wave of vines for Cinder.

Cinder's fire charred them to ash. Blake grew a flanking attack. Cinder toasted one side, and froze the other.

_This is not going as I'd planned._

Cinder flew in, body glowing red, silence from her mind. Blake drew gambol into a guard. Vines didn't work, not on their own. It may have been why Shell didn't like the matchup. It may have been a reason for Blake to practice with her new powers, too, but her timetable wasn't so accommodating. Cinder was burning Blake's supports faster than she regrew them. Soon Blake would have to land or dedicate all of her Growth to staying in the air.

But Blake still had _some_ time. She juked her harness away from Cinder's charge. When Cinder adjusted to her new position, Blake trapped her ankle with a carefully readied vine, shadowed out of her harness, and brought gambol down on the woman's neck.

Well, she tried to. The vine burnt up as it neared Cinder's body, Blake's shadow didn't work, and when Blake remained in her harness without dodging, Cinder punched her in the jaw so hard all of its vines snapped.

The pain, though significant, was couched in Blake's maiden aura, and her net rose to catch her above the tower. The shadow not working could be a problem. Had Yang mentioned anything about that? Had she _thought_ anything about that?

She could tell now, because Blake was falling fell right back into

_I WILL STOP CINDER I AM FREE I WILL NOT KILL I AM FREE I AM A BRANWEN_

Blake opened her eyes. Time had passed. Cinder, five feet above her, threw fire into a melting umbrella.

_I CAN RESIST I CAN OVERCOME_

Blake opened her eyes. Raven, fifteen feet away, sheared an ice arm off of her daughter. Blake lifted herself to her knees and tried to crawl away from her soul. A gust of wind blasted Blake into a wall glowing red with heat. She screamed as she burnt, until the wind slacked off and dropped her back to the floor

_I WILL NOT KILL MY DAUGHTER_

Blake opened her eyes. Ruby blocked a blow meant for Yang, then attacked as Cinder moved towards Neo's body. Cinder dissuaded her with a blast of fire. Ruby dodged, and the fire shot past her into Blake. Blake screamed again, and her aura cracked. Too much. Ruby was strong. Ruby had too much to protect.

_I WILL NOT LET YOU KILL MY DAUGHTER_

Blake opened her eyes. Ruby dodged in front of Neo's body, knocking a glass arrow from the air. Cinder blocked Yang's desperate strike and kicked her in the knee without turning around. _Liability._ Yang's aura shattered.

_I AM ALIVE_

Blake forced her eyes open. Cinder fired an arrow at Blake, almost as an afterthought, pinning an ear to the ground. Then she split her bow back into swords and walked up to Yang. Ruby screamed and fired shots at the maiden, who didn't care. Blake was too hoarse to join in. Ruby had blood on her face. How long had she been fighting without aura? Yang's eyes were locked to the swords that would end her life. _Liability. All I was._ Blake was pinned down. Couldn't move her head. Couldn't see.

_I AM FREE_

Blake lifted her head, tearing something. She pointed at a girder, lifting it with vines, and swung.

The blow knocked Cinder into a miasma of red and black. Beside her, Raven closed the portal.

Blake followed her into unconsciousness.


	17. Caring Hands

Blake smiled a timid smile and squeezed Yang's hand. It didn't seem right, that Blake should be the one providing comfort. Her bow was gone, leaving her head topped with a cat ear on her right and a blood-spattered leaf mirroring it on her left. She'd been distracted, pinned down. Then she'd ripped herself free, when Yang had needed her most.

Still, she smiled. Smiled for Yang. For what did Blake have now to smile about? It could only be for what Yang was feeling, truly feeling for the first time.

"She's awake," prompted Blake. "She's talking to Ruby now. I'll stay back. Go to her."

Yang took a deep breath and nodded a few times before rounding the corner. Ruby, cuts on her face, lay against a patch of wall with unmelted paint. One hand cradled the chin of the woman in her lap, while the other stroked the burnt ends of her multihued hair. Neo's eyes were closed, her hands holding a red spot at her side. But she was smiling.

On the wall behind them, held upright and immobile with layers and layers of vines, was Raven.

"Hello, Yang." She sounded just like Yang imagined. Just like she'd dreamed. More... strained. But otherwise.

Yang stepped closer. Raven Branwen, her mother. Working for Cinder, until she'd saved Yang's life. Controlled. But now, home. Safe. Together.

"Hey, mom." Yang smiled and stepped up to her. "I never gave up looking." Finally. Finally.

"I know." Lines of black wormed their way down Raven's Legs, and up her neck into her face. "Thank you for that." She smiled, and began to cry.

Her right eye, a black line running through it, cried blood instead of tears.

"What did she do to you?" asked Yang. Ruby watched the two, concern naked on her face. "Can I get you—"

"No." Raven shook her head as much as she was able. "If I could move, I'd try to escape. Better that I'm..." She coughed, staining her lower lip. "Not. My freedom, Yang. I have to warn you." Something moved in the air. A ship. Yang didn't care.

 _You stopped Cinder._ We _stopped her. What could be worse?_

"The fair folk make grimm as they need them," said Raven. "They breed insects for worming through aura. Digging into human souls. They've been experimenting. Now that..." She shook her head and moaned. "Cinder wanted the CCT off so the kingdoms wouldn't know, couldn't warn each other. They've mass produced them. They'll destroy everything." Her left eye's tears turned red. The black lines under her skin were pulsing, fracturing, branching off. "Ruby, please. No more."

Ruby rested Neo's head on the carpet and stood. "You're sure." Yang bit her lip. Something was terribly wrong with Raven. With Mom. Why hadn't Ruby helped her yet? What was she waiting for?

"I'm not." Raven's voice cracked. She wasn't super-mom. She was scared. "I can't hold on anymore. Anything. Help me."

Ruby took a deep breath and turned Yang. "Yang, I'm going to burn the magic from Raven's body. We're not sure what will happen. It's been in her a long time. Been a part of her."

"I love you," said Raven. "I love you both. My daughters. Ruby, you're their best hope now. Stay safe. Be the alpha. Like your mother." She paused, collecting herself. "Yang, you'll find your place in this, I promise." She looked back to Ruby. "Now. Please."

Ruby opened her hand, growing a pinprick of light in her palm into a ball of silver. Yang opened her mouth, then closed it again. What could she demand? What did Yang have to say that was _so damn important_ she could delay this from happening?

"I love you, mom," she said. Not that she'd need to. Not that she wouldn't be able to say it, every day, over and over again. She smiled. Raven smiled back.

Ruby pressed the silver into mother's sternum. Mom gasped, the black lines across her skin turning silver, then burning out. Ruby stepped back, afraid. Then mom coughed again and was still, sparkles of red light drifting from her chest.

"Mom?" Yang placed a hand on her cheek, slick with blood. She was cold. It was so cold up here, on top of the city. How long had mom been left to endure? Why hadn't Yang noticed it before?

"Mommy?"

Neo grabbed Yang's arm and pulled it down. Then she wiped the blood off Yang's hand with her sleeve and yanked her until she turned around.

Yang glared. "Get off me." She shook off Neo's weak grip. Her breath was frosting. "She's..."

Neo shook her head, ash flying from her hair.

She was right. She was right.

She was right.

Yang took a shuddering breath. Ruby pushed past Neo and hugged her, burying her head in Yang's chest. Blake rounded the corner and embraced the pair, tears in her eyes. The blood from her ear had mostly been staunched by some layered leaves she'd pressed into her hair. Neo looked the three up and down, hesitant. Uncertain. How long had she been favoring that leg?

After a minute, Yang whispered into the ear tickling her cheek. "She wasn't _your_ mother."

"She's yours." Blake looked up at her, through her. "Isn't that enough?"

"You didn't cry when you lost that ear."

"Maidens are tough."

"I'm not?" asked Yang.

"No." Blake nuzzled her face into Yang's neck, her right arm still around Ruby. "You're a _big dummy_."

A hand reached out and pulled Neo into the hug. Or two. Or three.


	18. Eggshell

Thirty six civilians, so far. As well as nineteen Mistral army corpsmen and ten SDC strike ops before they relented and switched to unmanned. The tower was emitting some sort of radio interference, but as best as the operator could tell, the last drone saw no fighting and no fire.

Weiss had her pilot buzz the roof once before landing. Not that there was more than a corner of actual roof; almost the entire building went at least one floor down, and most of what was visible was concrete and steel, with a haphazard tangle of criss-crossing plants. And Ruby, Neopolitan, Yang, and Blake, watching her bullhead. Two of those were entirely unexpected, but there was no Cinder, and that was what mattered. Weiss's gamble had paid off.

Did those plants mean that Sylvia had been here?

"Touch down there," Weiss pointed. "Leave it on quarter boost." Certainly it seemed as though enough weight had been flung off it in the past half hour, mostly down onto her head, but there was no reason to risk the building's stability. She dialed open the main cabin door.

Jaune was first out, accompanied closely by Nubukha. Then came Ren, escorting a handcuffed Roman Torchwick, and finally Weiss herself. Weiss's team formed up in a ragged line outside the door, with Neopolitan leaning against a pillar behind them.

All of them looked like Weiss felt. Half of Ruby's face was one big bruise. Neopolitan's grey clothing was torn up and sprinkled with red, and she'd lost at least a foot of her hair, the remainder ending in char and ash. Yang seemed the least impacted, with some dirt and singe creeping in around her edges.

Blake's bow was gone. On top of her head she had a cat ear on her right, and a bloody leaf on her left. She turned and whispered something to Yang, then looked back to Weiss. "I lost my ear fighting Cinder. I've got three more. Can you move on already?"

Weiss frowned. "But I didn't—"

"You did," Blake interrupted. "You just didn't mean to."

"Blake," cautioned Ruby.

"I'm a maiden now. I can read minds." She looked at Torchwick. "Even yours." Then at Ruby. "Still not yours. I'm just guessing you're thinking that." Then back to Weiss. "Anyway, turns out having other people's thoughts inside my head makes it hard to control emotions. We defeated Cinder, thanks to Raven overcoming her blighting. Cinder escaped. Raven died." Blake looked at Jaune. "Yang's mother. Enslavement. Could everybody SHUT UP for a bit?"

Nobody spoke. Weiss barely dared think, but how could she avoid it? Standing on the sight of a battle between an argent and two maidens. Cinder's signs were obvious; she'd been taking pieces off the building since before the others had arrived. Blake's were obvious. The plants, mostly vines, divided both the floor and the walls, with clumpings indicating areas of special interest or conflict. It wasn't even voices that caused Blake problems. Would somebody speak already?

"So then, Blakey," asked Roman. "What's next?" Likely meaning, do you ask Weiss to let me out of these handcuffs? Not that Weiss would, not without a good reason. She still needed to know what he knew. And if she didn't, the police could have him.

Of course, a maiden who could read minds might be one of the better sources of good reasons. This pretty much ended Blake's ability to relate to people as equals, at least in person. She'd have to use scrolls and long-distance. Would she want to? Was the knowledge, the insight, was it worth the trouble with her emotions? Was Ruby, as an argent, the only person Blake could consider a friend?

"You confuse me, Roman. You sympathize with people. It's your semblance. You care for them." Blake walked up to him, but pointed back towards Neopolitan. "You care for her, in your way. You know you're bad for her. Why?"

"I'm actually quite a selfless person," he answered, standing as tall as ever. "Maybe it gets lost in my brash yet charming attitude, but I do more good than people give me credit."

Blake looked him up and down. "No," she decided. "You're selfish. You touch people and see suffering, but you don't understand it. You take without giving." She turned around. "Yes, he does!"

"Blake," pleaded Yang. "We all need to calm down and take stock in what we have right now."

"Blake, you're beginning to scare me," said Weiss. She seemed far too on-edge. Like the rest of the team, She'd changed since Beacon. Gotten more decisive, had authority thrown at her. Forced to stand up for herself. But this wasn't leadership, or maturity, or facing anything. Blake was lashing out.

"Yeah, I'm the villain." Blake rolled her eyes. "I don't know how Shell lived like this because I have more than enough problems in my own head. Do you really think you outwitted your father by taking his job opening?"

"Blake, I'm taking strides to—"

"Jaune, get over Pyrrha, she's not coming back. Nubu, get over Jaune, you only think you love him. Ren, grow up or tell Nubu how you feel, even if it's unhealthy and yes it is. You people and your hormones." Blake was shouting now. "Neo, nobody is worth what you put into relationships. You haven't been powerless for years, speaking doesn't make you vulnerable, get over yourself. Yang, you arranged for Ruby's awakening, the only one that thinks you're useless is you."

"Blake!" shouted Ruby. "Please!"

"Yeah, that too," Blake shouted at Yang, responding to some thought or imagined slight. "You had it all planned out, didn't you? Sorry I didn't turn out like you wanted. And I'm sorry Cinder's going to release a plague and end civilization." A line of green snaked up her back, a growing vine. "You want to feel, Roman? Feel everything." Blake pressed a hand to Roman's forehead. His eyes rolled back into his head and his legs gave out.

A pair of giant leaves erupted from around Blake's shoulder blades. "Neo has my number, for when scrolls work. Promote that pilot." Then she took a running leap off of the building and dropped from Weiss's sight.

Ruby ran over to the edge of the building and watched the maiden fall.

For a moment, everyone stood still, save for Ren checking Roman's vitals. _That went worse than anticipated._ Saying Weiss was still controlled by her father, was that something she'd already thought? Was it, like those of the other's relationship troubles, gleaned from a peek inside her mind? If so, what had Blake seen? Was it a reinterpretation of Weiss's own experiences, colored by Blake's mindset instead of her own, or some sort of objective truth? How much could Yang teach Weiss about maidens? How much did _anybody_ even know?

What would happen to Blake next? With one of the most powerful beings in the world running from the fight, how long would they have to figure it out?

Weiss hadn't contacted Winter when the CCT was up. Not even a text. Why?

"We're supposed to be a team," Ruby whispered.

"You know Blake," Weiss told her. "She runs. She comes back. Give her time. To get used to things." Weiss looked at Yang. The woman had explained maiden succession rather specifically.

"So." Jaune scratched the back of his head. "Am I the only one wondering about Cinder destroying civilization?"

Weiss sighed. "Everyone, get on board. We have triage tents set up on the street." The details of the apocalypse could wait for ten minutes and a meal. If Weiss was hungry, Neo would be as well, and Jaune's group had just arrived in the city.

"We'll make this right," Ruby said, with more confidence than Weiss felt.

"Yes, we will," agreed Weiss.

"He's unconscious." Ren lifted Roman. "Come. We all have some talking to do." Then he walked into the bullhead. Neo limped over to Ruby, grabbed her sleeve, and pulled her towards the craft. Nubukha watched Ren board, then joined him.

Yang looked at Weiss.

"We won," Weiss said. Maybe it wasn't _to_ Yang. It was just something to announce, a thousand feet up in the afternoon mistral air. Weiss hated not knowing.

"My mother died, Cinder lived, the CCT is down and the fair folk are about to wipe out humanity." Yang walked past her, to the bullhead. "And Blake hates me. Because I murdered her best friend. Take a victory lap."

"We're not beaten," Weiss insisted, alone on the roof.

She found she hated knowing, too.


	19. Herd Killing

"Proper" had taken many forms over the years. First she'd seen it as impressing her father. It hadn't taken long before the demands on his life called him away, so he was replaced by proxies. Teachers, tutors, executives, family friends. Then, bit by bit, it had become her sister. Then, _impressing_ her sister... had it become _being_ her sister? Probably not, but still Weiss had spent more and more time around Winter as she'd grown older, as much as she was able while Winter grew more and more distant to the family structure. But she hadn't been goofing off. Weiss's goal had never deviated from pride, competence, and respect.

Which meant Winter had _no_ clue how to babysit.

" _This_ one is fun." Honorary Captain Qutinnguaq evoked a propulsion glyph half into Winter's console, shorting some wiring and turning off the screen. No warning bells sounded, save those inside Winter's mind, so hopefully her actions wouldn't result in the entire destroyer crashing or exploding.

"Honorary Captain," suggested Winter, rising. "Perhaps we should leave the bridge crew and retire to your quarters."

The young woman considered Winter's suggestion. "No," she decided. "I'm supposed to be here. Actually, over there." She pointed to the piloting console, where Winter's helmsman dutifully ignored her. "We have to go a bit more to the right."

They were in this unpopulated wasteland because of the captain's wishes, so what damage could course adjustments do? "Helmsman Iwo, course rotation on my mark. One degree starboard per minute. Mark."

The change was too slight to feel, but the compass indicated motion. Keep her out of trouble, Ironwood had said. How was Winter supposed to control a ranking officer? Even an honorary one, outside the chain of command?

"Ok, that's good!" shouted Captain Qutinnguaq. "Yes, I _know_!" she insisted to the air. "Listen, you..." She took a step, evoking another propulsion glyph under her feet mid-stride, and flipped over onto her back. "Oops. Sorry, Specialist. We were talking, right?"

"We were," Winter agreed. "The course has been adjusted. Shall we leave the bridge?"

"I guess I can. So many fun people here." The honorary captain walked up to a midshipman and created a glove of solid rock around her left arm. Winter had decided to stop being surprised when she did things like that. " _Fine_." She rolled her eyes at the air next to the man, petulant, and left out the main bridge door.

Winter hurried to follow. There was no telling what the woman would do left to her own devices. Or, by the way the woman seemed to hold half of a conversation, left to the devices of whoever was telling her what she could and couldn't do. "Honorary Captain."

"Pilo is fine." Honorary Captain Pilo swung her rock glove into a wall, denting it. "Yes, Summer, I _have_ told her that before. Some people miss things." She turned to Winter. "Anything from Ironwood? We were supposed to hear from him."

"Well, yes." How could she know about that? Winter hadn't expected it at all, and from what he'd said, even Ironwood had been surprised. "He called while you were asleep. The CCT blinked on and he gave us a short update on world events." As well as rejected Winter's formal request to return to Atlas, her second request to strip the Honorary Captain of command, and her fourth request, where she'd asked for a better explanation. Her third request, the first such one, had given her "she would figure out how to take you there anyway."

It _was_ better than the SDC. Winter was doing this because she chose to. She was already in the general's confidence, handling his under-wraps special assignments. Yes. That was how Winter would think of it.

Not babysitting at all. A special infiltration mission. That might lessen the sting.

Although the sting would probably disappear much faster if she wasn't babysitting a twenty two year old infant ordering around enough firepower to turn a paladin company to slag. Who had either the ability to copy semblances or a rather convincing surrogate thereof.

"Honorary Captain, are we nearing our destination?"

The woman paused, looking up. "I don't know." She must have seen something in Winter's face. "Don't worry, Specialist Winter. She'll know when we arrive."

"Who is _she_?" asked Winter.

"Oh, right. Not exactly a she. Sorry." Pilo nodded and grinned, embarrassed, before wandering back up the hall to to the bridge. She seemed carefree, like she barely even registered her own movement, but Winter practically had to sprint to slip through the door behind her.

As Winter's heel touched the bridge floor, the blasted klaxons started.

"Silence!" Winter's voice rang out above the din. "Vesper! Report!"

The alarms cut off. "One klick ahead. Some sort of cloud on the ground. Could be birds, Ma'am."

For a moment, the AMS Venture was silent. Then the honorary captain sang two words: " _Almost there."_

A chill ran down Winter's spine. "Battle stations," she ordered. "Engines full stop. Weapons active. Get me visual."

An image popped up on the display, washed out in the gloom. A swirling mass of white, and black, and dust. Even the zoom didn't show any real details beyond quick flashes of red.

It wasn't birds.

Grimm are drawn to humanity and its works. And Winter didn't have time to stop, turn around, and outrun it. "Fire when ready," Winter continued. "Destroy as many as we can. Security to discriminatory. All passengers, brace." The ship had no passengers. The words calmed Winter anyway.

The bridge lights flickered when the first volley fired, but soon the sound and the rocking of the ship were the only indication that the clouds of dust and fire on the screen were coming from Winter's location.

"Ma'am? Specialist Schnee!" Helmsman Iwo was engaged in a shoving match with the Honorary Captain.

"Captain Qutinnguaq!" Demanded Winter.

"We're almost there!" shouted the captain. "We have to go! It's really, really important!"

The cloud had halved the distance already, and Winter couldn't tell its numbers. Smaller than before, but the cloud looked to be nearly a mile long, extending past the ship's illumination and into the night. The chances that Winter could destroy it, or even thin it enough before it arrived to make a difference in what would happen when it _did..._

The cloud would reach the ship. Whatever happened then would happen. If Pilo knew about this, or her imaginary friend did, then maybe there was a reason they'd come.

Was Winter here to take back a warning?

Or was she here to get Pilo where she needed to go?

"Stand down, Helmsman," Winter ordered. "The captain will take us in. Security, backup to bridge."

The engines hummed to life as the ship started forward. Winter drew Seerose and took her position in the center of the bridge, just behind the captain. _Forty six souls follow in your wake. Make them count._

Five volleys later, the swarm impacted. The Venture shuddered and screeched as its hull tore in a thousand places. A beat faster than drums thudded against the viewport as grimm after grimm smashed into it, hairline fractures winding up and down its length. In the center, the fractures widened.

Winter evoked a glyph in front of the largest crack and began to build her army. Birds were best, with some beowolves rounding out her second line. The glyph snared some grimm, giving her a chance to study them for the first time. They looked like beetles, tiny grimm of mobility and rage.

The engines ground to a halt. "No!" shouted the captain. "No, no, no! Not yet!" Dead in the air. _What am I holding out for now?_

The right side of the viewport cracked open. Winter placed a second glyph over it and sent her birds at the slippage. They made quick work. The grimm outside were pressing harder, threatening to buckle the glyphs. _It doesn't matter. Fight anyway. Fight for your men._

The ship began to fall, the ground tipping into view. "Summer!" shouted Pilo. "Summer, what do I do?"

_Fight for your Captain._

The viewport shattered. Winter's birds attacked, and were shredded in a cloud of grimm and fury. Winter froze half the opening, then fired a jet of flame when the ice shattered a second later. Within seconds she ran dry on fire dust and swapped to wind. Her beowolves were gone too. Half the bridge crew were fighting back. More than half were screaming. The grimm were burrowing through their skin...

"Summer, please, come back!" Pilo was on the ground, crying, bleeding from something. Winter glyphed to the captain and grew an ice cocoon. Her sister's technique. Let it work.

"Summer!" the woman shouted again. "You promised not to leave me! You promised!"

The ground rushed up at the Venture.

ᴇɴᴅ


End file.
